Dark Legacy
by Nick Midian
Summary: Two years after an alternate ending to Season One, Peter and Claire find themselves on the run from mysterious assassins and trying to uncover the secrets of their pasts. Hold on fast, 'cause it's gonna be a rough ride! Canon Paire, twists & revelations!
1. Prologue: The Night of the Exploding Man

**Author's note: **Please, note that English is not my first language. Any grammar or spelling errors are mine and mine alone, not of any of my wonderful betas. I'm from Spain, so my knowledge of the USA is second-hand, I try to research all my fics the best that I can, if I get anything wrong along the way, once again, it's fully my responsibility. And Wikipedia's.

This tale is classified 'T' (although I'm more comfortable with a movie-like 'R') for acts of violence (nothing you won't see this week in CSI), some strong language (nothing that you won't hear in your high-school yard), and some sexual elements (nothing that you... well, you know).

Also, a special warning: this starts as a Canon Paire fic, and you _know_ what _that_ means. The I-word, and angst in bucketloads. It will also feature loads of action and things – and people – exploding, so I hope there is a little bit of everything for everybody.

And fckng giant robots. (Just joking).

**Special Dedication: **To Theo, who has been my beta for so long I can't even remember, who is my brother from Down Under, and who goes through all sorts of pain and struggle to make my fics something remotely readable. Hermano, you are totally my hero.

**Author's notes (Nov 29****th****, 2007): **After some discussion with my betas (Hey there Sarah! Elle! Caity!) the story has experience some revamping. Now the former parts one and two are the new 'Prologue' and parts three and four are the new 'Chapter One'. Don't worry by the apparent disappearance of chapters, nothing of the story has been lost.

Oh, and before I forget: Peter, Claire and the rest of the gang, Heroes and all that encompasses it are not mine. They belong to NBC, Tim Kring and all that people from Hollywood. I'm just borrowing them for a little harmless fun.

Now, on with the freakshow.

---O---

DARK LEGACY

a HEROES fanfiction novel by

Nick Midian

**Prologue****: The Night of the Exploding Man**

_Only the strongest will survive_

_Lead me to heaven when we die_

_I am the shadow on the wall_

_I'll be the one to save us all_

_  
"Blow me away", Breaking Benjamin_

**Manhattan - New York****  
November 8****th****, 2006**

Life always has a certain way of being ironic and a bitch at the same time.

When Nathan Petrelli joined the U.S. Navy and became a fighter pilot, those who knew him thought he had done so merely as a means to an end. After all, serving God and country was something that always looked good on your résumé when you had political aspirations, and as the first-born and heir-apparent of a family that was so often referred to as _the New York Kennedys_, nobody doubted where Nathan was heading to later in life.

Serve the country. Serve the community. Serve yourself.

There was a bit of truth in all this, obviously, but beneath the surface – as it usually happens – not everything was what it appeared to be.

The real truth was Nathan Petrelli simply loved to fly.

Up there in the deep blue sky, alone in the cockpit of his plane, miles away from the mundane, there was peace. There was freedom.

Freedom from his family, from his parents, from their expectations and their secrets. From Peter and a childish brotherly admiration he could never truly live up to. Freedom from the noise and the chaos. From living a life he was not really sure he had chosen for himself.

Even in combat missions during the so-called peacekeeping actions in Rwanda and the Balkans, when he had to drop a payload of death on people whose names he would never know, whose reasons for warring he would never understand; up and above in the cockpit of his F-18, everything was calm.

Up and above. Where there was order. Where there was just he and the clouds.

Oh yes, flying made him happy. Wasn't it ironic?

Wasn't life a bitch?

Now he was flying again, although Nathan wasn't at the controls of the Corinthian Casino-owned Bell helicopter quickly taking him away from Manhattan. He was not much in control of anything these days, to be honest.

Ever since the accident, the discovery of his impossible, incredible power and his father's death, Nathan felt like he was being swept away by a flood of wills and actions that weren't his own. They were Linderman's and his mother's, and God knew who else's.

Maybe deep down, as much as Petrelli refused to accept it, he was just a pawn; a little puppet dancing to the movement of his masters' hands that foolishly believed he could cut his strings whenever he wanted to.

Nathan looked out of the window, at the sleeping city sliding beneath the chopper. Millions of oblivious souls that ate, watched TV, slept and made love, completely ignorant of the impeding tragedy that quickly neared them all.

Or were they?

Manhattan seemed to possess an eerie quality that night. The streets were nearly empty, the usually blinding shine of the skyscrapers and streetlights muted and dull.

Maybe they sensed something. Maybe they all knew in some instinctive, primal way that these were their last hours on Earth and they – like wounded, dying animals – had sought the comfort and familiarity of their caves, to spend those last moments in the warmth and comfort of their families and homes.

Were they were all resigned then, like he was being asked to be?

'_It can't be stopped. There is nothing I can do. The bomb is going to explode. They are all going to die. And you…_

…_you will do nothing.'_

Linderman, Thompson, even his own mother seemed to be so absolutely sure it was so. Unavoidable and unstoppable. And it was all for the greater good.

Were they right? Was this truly the right thing to do? Was he doing a service to America, to the world…or was he just feeding the flames of his own vanity and greed?

Was he to become a messiah, or a mass murderer?

For Peter, it was all so clear - but then, his younger brother had always seen things that way, hadn't he? Everything was black and white to him; it was probably why he had become a nurse in the first place. Save people's lives and by definition you were doing good. Earn your brownie points and get into Heaven.

What did Peter know of shades of grey? What did he know of sacrifice? Of duty?

But then, what did Nathan himself know?

"You still have doubts," his mother's controlled voice dragged Petrelli's attention away from the outside view. The scenario was changing fast beneath them, the dark mass of the Hudson River replacing the bright city lights. It was like watching doom coming closer.

Nathan looked at his mother Angela, who was sitting in front of him. The interior of the helicopter was closer to the one of a luxury limousine, with plush leather seats and cushioned walls that dulled the noise of the turbines. Linderman's support reached them even from beyond the grave.

'_I just hope the manipulative old bastard can't heal himself,' _Nathan thought with an inner shiver, recalling that time in Vegas and other demonstrations of the man's power.

"Please, try not to do such a great job of hiding your disappointment, Mother," Nathan suddenly smirked. "It's confusing."

"You shouldn't be," she ignored his quip. "We've been over this already."

"Yes, I know," the just-elected Congressman sighed with impatience. "Responsibility, sacrifice, doing it for the greater good and all that nonsense. It's sound too much like a load of cr-"

"Nathan!" Mrs. Petrelli admonished him with a scowl. "Watch your attitude when you speak in front of me, will you? You are now a representative of the American people, and you have to start acting like one."

"It's kind of ironic that you should say that." He shook his head. Fishing inside his jacket, Nathan retrieved his cell phone and flipped it open. "Considering that I'm about to allow practically all of my constituents down there to die a very horrible death in a very short time."

"Sarcasm isn't a terribly attractive quality in a Presidential hopeful, either. Who are you calling?" Angela demanded.

"Heidi. I want to be sure she and the kids have arrived safely at Nantucket." He browsed the list in search of his wife's cell number.

"You shouldn't bother. You'll be seeing them personally in about half an hour."

Nathan's dark eyes instantly shot towards his mother. The Petrelli matriarch was absently rummaging in her handbag, looking for something. She almost looked like the woman he had thought she was, merely a week ago. "Where are those tissues? I swear, I had to have put them in here…"

"Mom? What did you just say?" She raised her eyes but said nothing, waiting for him to elaborate. Nathan said with narrowed eyes, "You said I would see them in half an hour. But it's impossible to make it to Nantucket within half an hour. Not by helicopter, anyway."

Angela arched her eyebrows for a second, and then she returned to look inside the expensive Prada handbag. "They're not in Nantucket, Nathan. And we're not heading there either, for that matter. We'll land in Jersey and set up shop in Newark. I know it's a less than desirable place to stay, but then public opinion will later praise your decision to stay close to Ground Zero and manage the post-crisis situation from the front lines instead of hiding in some socialite haven."

Nathan was speechless for a second, and his mother sighed at his astonished expression. "Oh, for the love of God, Nathan, stop being such a dunce about this, would you? Do you think we've left anything to chance? Our people have extrapolated every single possibility and squeezed every bit of data. We'll be perfectly safe. Do you think _**I **_want anything bad to happen to my grandchildren?"

'_And what about Claire?' _Nathan thought with a new inner chill, remembering how his Texan cheerleader daughter had furiously abandoned him and Angela. '_Isn't she your grandchild too? Or is she simply… as expendable as Peter? Like the rest of Manhattan?'_

But he said nothing of this aloud. Instead, he weakly asked, "Do you know what's going to happen, then? The cold hard facts?"

Now her eyes settled on his own. And they were cold, calculating. "Yes, I do."

"Tell me."

"You don't need to know, Nathan, it'll only…"

"_**Tell**_ _**me**_, mother."

Angela Petrelli sighed. "Kirby Plaza will be Ground Zero, you know that. Everything from Grand Central to Tenth Avenue, and from Central Park to Madison Square Gardens, will be destroyed in the explosion. Afterwards, the jet stream will carry the nuclear cloud northeast, mostly out to the sea. Fallout might affect the East Coast up to Massachusetts. Fortunately, we believe that the ionizing radiation will be relatively weak, the levels of secondary casualties shouldn't be too high, although the electromagnetic pulse produced by the blast will shut down all communications-"

"Oh, Jesus, please, please stop… stop…" Nathan sunk his face in his hands. "What are we doing, what the hell are we doing?"

"Nathan, I'm getting tired of this," the steel ice-cold in Mrs. Petrelli's voice. "I know it's hard for you, but it's the great men who make the hard decisions and the difficult choices. This is for the greater good."

Nathan was truly starting to get sick of hearing that. "How did I ever let you convince me-"

But Angela didn't let him finish. "Because you know it's the right thing to do! Nathan, look at the state of the world, for goodness sake! We're in the 21st century, we've had our eyes on the stars for decades ever since the Moon landings; and yet, children keep dying of hunger and AIDS all around the globe. People still kill each other over race and religion. There's hate and there's misery like there's never been before… and I'm not talking about remote places in Africa. I'm talking about the same streets you and I walk through every day. We need a common cause, we need something to bring us together to get over our differences. We need _**this.**_"

_At least she __**does **__believe in what she's saying, _Petrelli thought bitterly. But it didn't help him to feel any more relieved. If anything, he now felt like he was drowning in a swamp of lunacy.

"Humor me here; but just how exactly is it going to help, mom? How many millions are going to die tonight? Linderman said it was going to be 0.07 percent of the world's population, but how many more in the next few years due to the radioactivity? The birth defects? The suicides? How many lives affected and destroyed by the economic chaos that will surely follow? How can anything good come out of this… this… _monstrosity?_"

How many millions indeed? Although right now he could only think of two specific individuals. Peter and Claire.

His hero-worshipping brother. His illegitimate daughter.

Two people in this world who, by all the laws of nature and society, he should care about and protect were the same two people he was sacrificing on the altar of the gods of power and greed.

There was an unmistakable look of disappointment in Angela Petrelli's eyes. "Don't be weak, Nathan. Don't be your father. You have a chance here to be better than him, to be the one the world needs. Don't waste it."

'_My father was my hero. Even if Peter and I were going to stab him in the back that way before he died, he __**was**__ one of the heroes.'_

'_The future is not written in stone.'_

'_Just help me, Nathan. Just… help me.'_

The Congressman looked down at his phone. As he hadn't dialed, the device's screen had gone back to the wallpaper: a candid picture of Monty and Simon, his two sons.

"Is this the world you want your children to grow up in?" his mother asked, as if reading his mind. And hell, maybe she had done exactly that. Nathan couldn't be sure of anything anymore.

Nathan's eyes went back to her. Now they were mirroring her steel-like determination. "No, it's not."

She nodded and smiled, pleased. But the steel didn't soften in her son's expression as he added, "I won't let them grow up to find out that their father turned his back on eight million people, including their uncle and sister, and let them die a horrible death. I won't let them grow up in a world where the fate of innocents is decided by a cabal of a few… illuminated madmen."

Nathan reached for the opening handle of the side door with one hand, at the same time he released his safety belt with the other. "I'll see you in Jersey, mom."

"Nathan, don't!" Angela screamed as she realized what he was about to do.

But her words were swept away by the fury of the wind and the pounding of the helicopter's rotors as Nathan yanked the sliding door wide open.

He heard his mother calling his name again as he jumped out the helicopter, but her voice was too weak to overcome the raging storm of his own heartbeat.

After a couple of seconds, that was all that remained; his heart thundering in his chest, alive for the first time in what seemed like ages. That and the howl of the wind in his ears, as Nathan Petrelli went into free fall within the darkness of the New York night.

The helicopter soon left him behind and Nathan fell down towards the dark mass of the Hudson, the wind making his power tie flap and snap like a whip. He was still clutching the cell phone in his right hand as if it was a lifeline.

His speed decreased dramatically when he willed his body to start floating down like a feather. For an endless instant, Petrelli simply enjoyed the exhilarating sensation with his eyes closed, a large part of himself still unable to get used to the wonder of his own power.

His right thumb, however, moved over the keyboard of his phone, speed-dialing his wife's number. He opened his eyes, and the Manhattan city lights beckoned him forward like a lighthouse would guide a lost ship.

The flying Congressman brought the phone to his ear just in time to hear the call signal being replaced by his wife's worried voice. "Nathan! Where are you? What's going on? These men have practically kidnapped the boys and me at gunpoint! They say they work for Mr. Linderman, and you and they have brought us to-"

"Heidi, Heidi," he hushed her. "Please, listen to me…"

"Nathan…" Heidi Petrelli whispered, unable to hide the fear and worry in her voice.

"Heidi, I… I don't have much time..." There were so many things he wanted to tell her. So many things he had kept silent about over the years. Too many lies and half-truths.

If it had been to protect Heidi or himself, he was no longer sure. All Nathan knew was that it was time to come clean, and time was running short.

She fell silent, expectant. Nathan said, "I'm so sorry, Heidi. I'm sorry not to have been the best husband and best father I could've been. I'm sorry for the lies and all the unspoken truths. I'm sorry I never let you in. I'm sorry... I'm sorry for not having been the man you deserved."

Nathan was crying now, something he had almost forgotten how to do. And it felt liberating. Cleansing. "But I'm trying now, God knows I am. I can be that man. I can be that husband, that father... that brother. I love you more than life itself, and even though it might seem I'm about to waste all we've worked so hard for... you have to trust me, my love. I'm doing this for you. For us."

"Nathan..." Heidi was still worried, and now confused as well. "I don't understand anything, what's going on... please, tell me you're alright?"

The Congressman smiled as he started to move forward, gaining speed by the second. "I am, Heidi. I'm better than I've been for a long time. And I love you, with all my heart."

"I love you too, you know that. And I trust you. I know whatever you have to do, you'll do the best for me and the children. But please..." she pleaded sincerely. "Nathan, please, be careful. I'm scared for you."

"Don't be," his heart was thundering now again, bursting out of his chest. "It's not time for fear. It's a time of hope. I love you. Tell the boys their father loves them."

It sounded painfully much like a farewell; too much so for comfort. Heidi was crying too on the other end of the line. "We love you too, Nathan."

Nathan disconnected the phone before she could add anything more. If those were the last words he would ever hear from his wife, he could never have chosen a better ones himself.

He had needed them desperately. Needed them to push him faster, faster than ever.

Smiling, the man dropped the cell phone and let it fall into the dark waters of the Hudson.

And then Petrelli let the words, the thoughts, the feelings, the love and the hope push him forward, faster than ever before. Beyond the speed of sound. Beyond the wall of fear. Raising a curtain of pulverized water from the cold river on his wake, he flew towards fate.

Towards Peter and Claire.

Towards the exploding man and destiny.

Towards Manhattan.

---O---

**Kirby Plaza - Manhattan - New York****  
November 8****th****, 2006**

Peter Petrelli was a man on fire.

He burned from the inside, from a place deep within himself that he had never thought could even exist. A dark, angry, violent place.

And it felt like a raging inferno.

As his fists fell against Sylar's face, the young man only felt the fire burn brighter and hotter. As his knuckles hit the other man's flesh like pearls of thunder, he was filled only with satisfaction. And as the psycho's blood splattered the pavement, Peter Petrelli's inner fire only grew more and more intense.

Peter wanted to kill Sylar. He wanted to do so with every cell of his body, with every beat of his heart and every thought racing through his mind.

He wanted to kill him for Ted Sprague, the nuclear generator and falsely accused terrorist who had ended up without a brain in a black bodybag; with an expression of supreme terror trapped in his dead eyes. He wanted to kill him for Matt Parkman, the mind reader and former cop who was currently bleeding to death on the ground not far away. He even wanted to kill him for Mr. Bennet, the former Company man who lay sprawled on the pavement with broken ribs and God only knew what else. Peter definitely wanted to kill him for Claire, for hurting and scaring the young girl he'd only recently discovered was actually his niece. But above all, he wanted to kill the man for himself, for making him feel like this.

In his mind, Peter Petrelli was not supposed to be this way. He was supposed to be kind and gentle, always more worried about others than himself, always the dreamer looking up to the stars in search for answers and hope. He wasn't meant to be this violent beast, wasn't intended to be a tool of destruction and pain.

And he hated Sylar for forcing him to become one; for making him enjoy it.

The flames of his rage were also being fueled by Nathan's betrayal. His brother, his hero, the man he had always looked up and wanted to become and who had abandoned him in his greatest moment of need. This whole goddamned mess had forced Peter to look into Nathan's mind and see his big brother's true face. He tried to blame the telekinetic madman for that too, for forcing his hand and destroying the bliss of ignorance. But he couldn't, not really.

So he blamed Nathan for his betrayal. So he blamed himself for his own blindness.

On his knees, Sylar laughed at Peter and the sound of his mirth only inflamed his fire. His fists were closed so tightly, his nails dug into the palms of his hands painfully. He was about to cave the murderer's face in when he realized why he was laughing.

Peter's hands… they were shining.

"Wait, no! No!" He yelled.

Distraught, Peter moved away from his enemy, his eyes transfixed by the radiance being emitted through his own hands. The radioactive pulse grew in intensity and strength, and he didn't seem to be able to do anything to prevent it. He was losing control, quickly.

"Turns out you're the villain, Peter," Sylar laughed. "I'm the hero."

'_No, no, no, NO!'_ It couldn't be like this. It couldn't end like this.

Peter panicked, looking around. He could feel Ted's power growing within him; becoming more and more hot and angry by the second. He felt the nuclear fire wanting to consume him, searching for release. His breath grew quicker and shallower as cold perspiration covered his body. Gaunt and pale, Petrelli knew he was on the brink of exploding. And in doing so, he would annihilate all that was loved and cherished by him. He would truly become the villain.

New York, his family, his friends… Claire.

Peter's dark eyes moved, as if guided by a force beyond him. 'C_laire…_'

He saw the petite blonde running towards Kirby Plaza, fastening her gaze onto her adopted father and taking a second to kneel at his side and check on him. And then her eyes, green even at a distance, moved to lock onto his. The fear and pain in them broke his heart.

But at the same time, the made a different kind of fire burn within his soul. One that didn't burnt. One that healed.

Claire's hands moved to retrieve the pistol at Mr. Bennet's side. She would do it. Claire would stop him, just like she had promised him she would. And that, taking a human life – his life – that way, that would surely destroy her soul. He could not allow that to happen.

'_I __**will not**__ allow that to happen.'_

Peter's nails dug deeper in the soft flesh of his hands, so deep that blood ran free, wet and warm between his fingers. Somehow he willed his mind to tame the power, to leash it under his control, to use it to fuel him and not consume him.

With supreme effort, the young nurse somehow regained control of the thermonuclear ability.

Peter looked back to Sylar as the radiance faded. The serial killer's expression of amusement turned sour as he got back to his feet. Once again, they faced each other.

"I don't see any heroes here tonight, Sylar," Peter growled with a raspy voice, in reply to the other man's taunt. "In fact, I only see a useless, ordinary parasite when I look at you. And you know what? I'm gonna squash you like a roach."

The former watchmaker wiped his bloodied lips with the back of his hand. "Try me."

Peter moved forward, his right arm going back to deliver a new punch, but Sylar shot his own arm forward and Petrelli felt like a sledgehammer was crushing his chest. His ribs cracked soundly under the powerful telekinetic blow, and he was sent flying backwards. His feet slid along the ground until his own telekinesis kicked in and he anchored himself down, screeching to a sudden halt. Peter coughed though, and blood sprayed from his mouth to sprinkle his white shirt.

But the mimic didn't back down, and he used Nathan's ability to launch himself forward, crossing the distance to Sylar in half a second, punching him as he flew past.

Sylar's head snapped to the side as Peter turned around while levitating, in order to continue facing his enemy. But the psycho once again applied his mind power to the other man's body, and Peter – now unable to ground himself – was propelled towards the building behind him. The impact was so brutal that the wall's tile cover cracked before he fell down to the pavement.

"Peter!" He heard Claire calling his name as he fought to stay conscious. He was screwed up inside, and he knew it. Bones pulverized, internal organs smashed… Petrelli prayed for his niece's healing abilities to be strong and fast enough.

"Useless and ORDINARY??!!" Sylar yelled in rage, advancing towards him. He motioned with his hand and Peter felt his throat being grasped again by invisible steely fingers, his body being forced to slide up the wall. "I'm nothing short of EXTRA-ORDINARY!!"

'_Anyone else probably would've taken more offense at the 'parasite' part,'_ the hero thought vaguely, unable to voice his thought aloud as his foe's mental fingers tightened and choked him.

"You are pathetic, Peter Petrelli, weak and unworthy. Just like all the others," Sylar continued, his voice becoming an inhuman reverberation and his physical hand joining his mental one around the young man's neck. "You're the real parasite around here."

Out of the corner of his eye, Peter saw Claire leaving her father's side and running towards them, Bennet's .45 in her hand. Sylar saw her too, and he grinned sideways at his prisoner. "Well. We know how this ends, don't we?"

Peter's mind immediately flashed back to just a few minutes earlier; to Parkman bursting onto the plaza with his weapon blazing and to the gun's bullets merely halting and flying backwards to hit the disgraced cop instead.

At least Claire could survive something like that. Probably. Hopefully.

"SYLAR!"

The deeply accented male voice stopped everybody in their tracks. Hiro Nakamura had blinked into existence, roughly twenty feet behind Sylar's back. The young man had just teleported in from Japan, having saved his friend Ando from Sylar's lethal grasp not long ago.

The villain rolled his eyes and said with disgust, "You." Then he turned back to Peter. "What is this, a freak show?"

"SYLAR!" Hiro called for his enemy again.

Annoyed, the taller man glanced at the Japanese young man over his shoulder. "Can't you see I'm busy here?"

"Sylar, come here and face me with honor!" Hiro declared dramatically, raising his sword.

The power-stealer again rolled his eyes. Sylar then looked pseudo-apologetically at his captured adversary. "Sorry about this, Petey-boy, but as you can see I'm sort of in the spotlight tonight. My fans demand my presence, but don't you worry, I'll be back in just a sec."

Sylar released him physically, but nonetheless kept him pinned against the wall with his telekinesis. Over his shoulder as he walked towards Hiro, the serial killer quipped, "You just hang in there!"

Claire ran towards her uncle, as Sylar went to face Japanese boy. She was scared and confused, too much was happening in too a short time. As the blonde teenager arrived at her uncle's side, she quickly tucked away the large handgun into the waistband of her trousers and desperately grasped the dark-haired man's hand with hers. "Peter! What are we going to do?"

The touch of her small warm hand on his was electrifying somehow, and bathed him with a tidal wave of calm, grounding and clearing his mind. Her presence had always had that effect; he had felt this way before that first time in the hallways of Union Wells high school, and the intensity of such an effect scared him a bit.

"Go away," Peter managed to growl, as his throat was still being squeezed by invisible fingers. He realized that he didn't want anything more than to protect her. "Go back to your dad."

"No, I can't leave you here like this!" The young Bennet refused the order, always the stubborn little Texan cheerleader. She tried to yank at him, get him from the wall, but it was like he was stuck with superglue to the cement.

He managed a small smile for her benefit. "Trust me, I have everything under control."

Claire darted a look at Sylar, who was now facing Hiro at arm's length. "You're a terrible liar."

"Haven't we gone through this before?" the power-stealer was saying as he arched his thick eyebrows at the sword-wielding time-shifter. "Didn't turn out like you thought it would, did it?"

"I am ready now," Hiro stated with his heavy accent. "I will kill you!"

He then released a powerful battle cry and raised his nagamaki sword, ready and poised to strike. More amused than concerned, Sylar raised his hand, about to send his enemy flying away with just a flick of his hand and a passing thought.

And that was when Peter made his move.

As Hiro started charging forward and Sylar was about to use his telekinesis, the younger Petrelli brother gathered all his will and strength and, in spite of the pain caused by his broken insides, used that same power on the powerful psychotic. Peter simply shoved his adversary in the back with all his might, in what was the mental equivalent of a sucker punch.

It maybe wasn't the most heroic action ever, but hey, Peter was trying to save the world here. He hoped karma would cut him a little slack on this one.

And it worked. Suddenly distracted and losing his footing, Sylar awkwardly stumbled forward, only to find himself in the oncoming path of the razor-sharp Japanese blade.

The nagamaki slammed through his chest, missing Sylar's heart by a mere fraction of an inch, and appeared out of his back covered in blood. For an instant, all that the powerful villain could muster was an expression of deep surprise and the hawking sound of a wounded animal as his lungs were painfully depleted of air.

Sylar's eyes locked with Hiro's as he struggled to understand what had just happened. But all he only saw his own reflection in the younger man's spectacles. And he didn't like what he found there.

Defeat.

Hiro tore the sword out and slashed the air with it, tiny droplets of red blood sprinkling the pavement as Sylar's body fell down. "_Yatta_!"

The invisible grasp on him vanishing, Peter also fell down, only to be caught by Claire's waiting arms. Petrelli coughed and grimaced in pain as the healing ability borrowed from the cheerleader rearranged and cured his ravaged insides.

"Is that it?" she asked, hopeful. "Did we win?"

"Peter Petrelli!" Hiro called, preventing him from answering. "I did it! I slayed villain! _Yatta!_"

For a moment, Petrelli was reminded of when he had met the future version of Hiro Nakamura on that New York train, when he'd been travelling with Mohinder Suresh. That Hiro had been at least five years older than his present counterpart, though, and had completely lost that look of exuberance. Perhaps that Hiro would now never come to exist. He certainly hoped so.

Hiro started running towards him and Claire, a big smile on his chubby face. He was so happy that he foolishly ignored the most basic rule of combat: never turn your back on a wounded enemy.

Sylar, life slowly escaping from him, turned around on the ground and telekinetically pushed Hiro hard and up into the air. The time-traveling Japanese found himself airborne and quickly nearing a lethal collision with a building. Instinctively, he closed his eyes and wished himself out of harm's way.

And just like he had appeared, Hiro vanished from existence in that time and place, finally manifesting himself over 300 years earlier in feudal Japan; but that was a tale for another time.

In the present time, Peter shook his head and finally answered Claire, "No, we didn't win yet."

"You… you all…" Sylar coughed, his lips and chin staining with blood. "You spoiled it all…"

Not far away Niki Sanders, her husband D.L. Hawkins, their son Micah and little Molly Walker were all witnessing the amazing events developing in the front court of Kirby Plaza. Even after all they had gone through in the last few months, there was still room for surprise and shock.

"Well," D.L. groaned, holding his wounded belly and bleeding from Linderman's bullet. "So much for our theory of us being the only ones with powers."

"How can he be still alive?" Micah asked his parents. "He just got run through with a big sword!"

"'Cause he's the boogeyman," Molly said with a scared little voice. "You can't kill the boogeyman."

"If he bleeds, he can be killed," a new voice said, close to them. Holding his cracked ribs in pain, Noah Bennet leaned on the wall by the Hawkins family. "He knows how everything works, that's his power. His original power...he knows how his own body works in perfect detail, and he's using his telekinesis to keep himself alive; to keep on ticking."

Bennet released a grunt of discomfort, as he let himself slide down the wall to sit at D.L.'s side. "I should have killed him when I had the chance. But he's using most of his concentration to stay alive now. His options are getting limited. He's like a wounded tiger, now's the time he's most dangerous."

"What can we do to help?" Niki asked. "There's got to be something!"

The man with the horn-rimmed glasses shook his head. "It's all in Peter's hands now. He's the only one that can end this."

If Petrelli's ears had pricked up at the mention of his name, his face didn't betray it. He let Claire help him to his feet as both of them observed Sylar doing the same on his own, albeit with a lot more effort. He felt the cheerleader shaking in his arms with fear, and it wasn't until then that he realized that he was embracing her.

'_What for?' _he wondered. '_For comfort? To protect her? Or is it… something else?'_

This was neither the time nor the place to examine such thoughts. He wondered if there ever would be such a time.

"What now?" the cheerleader asked. "What do we do, Peter?"

'_As if I had the slightest…' _"You go back to your father," the man tried to sound calm as he separated himself from her. "I'll take care of this."

"Peter, you don't have to do this alone-"

"PETER!!" Sylar roared. He was plugging the wound on his chest with his hand, and his face was a mask of pure rage. "PETER PETRELLI!!"

"Go. Now," the nurse repeated intensely to his niece. "Please."

Claire finally yielded and nodded in agreement. She retreated, hurriedly moving back while alternatively looking at her uncle and Sylar.

"Give it up, Sylar!" Peter yelled. He elegantly levitated and floated until he was close to the psycho. He did it more for show than anything else, wishing he could convince the enemy to just lie down and die once and for all. "This is over, and you know it."

The young man once called Gabriel Gray merely shook his head. Sylar's eyes shone full of hatred and madness, with such fierce intensity that they seemed to be burning coals. "It's not over. Not by a long shot."

There was something wrong here, and Peter didn't like it one bit. A deep sense of apprehension settled down in the pit of his stomach and refused to go. The intensity of the blaze in Sylar's eyes was becoming brighter by the second. It wasn't only madness that caused it.

"Sylar, don't do this," Peter warned him, even though he was not sure exactly what he was warning against. "You are going down, don't try to drag everybody else with you. I _won't _let you."

"You still don't get it, do you Peter?" the watchmaker chuckled bitterly. "I was born to be special…"

"We're all special." Damn it, but that sounded clichéd even to his own ears.

"Yes. Just like Mohinder suspected, all the members of our species are special, but I am also… _unique. _And tomorrow, tomorrow Peter, everybody will know and remember my name. Everybody will forever remember the name of Sylar."

'_Oh, shit!'_ Peter thought in numb horror, as he saw the glowing hands and realized the murderer was going to use Ted's stolen power to end it all.

The radiance was now spreading throughout the psychopath's whole body, as if each and every one of the pores of his skin were pulsating with living, destructive energy. Peter could feel the heat emanating from him and he knew he couldn't waste even a second more. He moved forward, trying to grab the enemy.

His heart raced like a wild stallion. In his mind, a decision had already been made. Petrelli knew he couldn't let Sylar destroy New York, just like he wouldn't have allowed himself to do so. If he couldn't stop the deranged lunatic from exploding, he would fly him up into the sky and let him detonate out of harm's way. If he couldn't get himself away from the blast wave in time, or failed to regenerate afterwards…

Well, Peter thought about all the brave people that had been gathered here tonight, by chance or fate, and considered his own life a price fair enough to pay.

But, of course, Sylar was not going to collaborate with that plan. As soon as he noticed Peter moving, he pointed his free hand at Petrelli and released a controlled burst of energy. In short, it was a nuclear strike at point blank range. It sent Peter flying once again, his clothes and hair enveloped in flames, his eyes blinded by the pure white flash.

His body traced an upward arc, burning not only with fire, but with a pain so intense that his mind threatened to shut down completely to escape from it; to run away from the truth - that he had failed, like his mother had predicted he would. He had been weak and now nothing, nobody would stop the exploding man.

'_He is ruled by insecurities, he is weak...'_ Angela Petrelli's voice sounded in his head, obliterating everything else, even the cry of his own name in the distance coming from Claire's lips.

All of a sudden, strong arms held his body as he reached the zenith of his burning flight. He was embraced and in a delicious rapture, and Peter thought it was finally all over. He was dead now, and angels were taking him away to his eternal reward.

"Peter," he heard Nathan's voice. "I'm here, Peter. I've got you."

"Nathan?" Petrelli growled, hissing air though destroyed lungs. "Is that you? What are you doing here?"

He felt himself being floated down and gently placed on the pavement. There were hands on his body, strong male hands comforting him. "You get in trouble and I drop everything to fix it. Isn't that how things work?"

Now Peter knew it was a dream. Because they'd had that same conversation in Texas, back in the jail cell that he'd temporarily ended up in after rescuing Claire from Sylar's first attack. It had been a dream, had it not?

"No Nathan, the bomb...I couldn't... I'm sorry..."

"Shhh, it's alright, Peter. Everything's going to be alright."

And then there were other hands touching him, smaller, warmer. Claire. "Peter," he heard his niece's voice, and felt the tears in her words. "Peter..."

"Mom was right..." the young nurse cried with sightless eyes. "We can't stop it... It's all been for nothing..."

Nathan gently let his younger brother rest on the ground, supported by Claire's arms. He had finally flown into the midst of the battlefield after abandoning Angela and all her plans, only to see his little brother receiving the impact of Sylar's nuclear strike; and had only been able to grab him in mid-air before Peter crashed down to the ground. His sibling's ravaged and burned body was almost too painful to look at directly. The responsibility of what had happened weighed heavily on the eldest Petrelli brother's shoulders.

Yet, he managed a small smile as he shook his head and looked into the eyes of his biological daughter. "You were right. The future is not written in stone."

Claire looked back at him, her eyes full of tears. She shook her head in denial, already knowing what the Congressman intended to do, and not wanting to believe it. He simply smiled again, and placed a tender kiss on her cheek. Her tears were salty on his lips as he whispered. "You'll have to take care of him now."

"You were right all along, Peter," Nathan continued, turning to his brother. "You saved the cheerleader, so we could save the world. And we will, we _will_."

He stood up and started to walk backwards, away from him, towards Sylar. "I love you, Peter."

"Nathan, no," Peter coughed, still blind but far from stupid. "What are you going to do? Nathan? No!"

But Nathan Petrelli didn't say another word. His throat was too tight, too concentrated on holding back the tears as he turned around to face the exploding man.

Sylar had fallen down to one knee. The blow to Peter had depleted all his strength, he could barely do anything more than to keep himself alive as the frequency of his radiant pulses grew exponentially.

He raised his eyes to meet Nathan's. They were full of hatred, and impotence too as the suited man walked next to him and, without a word, grabbed him with both hands beneath his armpits.

And then Nathan flew straight up, taking the human nuclear bomb with him.

"Nathan, no!" Peter cried, shaking in Claire's embrace. "NATHAN!!!"

---O---

One second, and they had already cleared Manhattan's skyline.

Two seconds and Nathan and Sylar were well past MACH 1, breaking the sound barrier as Petrelli accelerated faster and faster.

Five seconds, fifteen thousand feet of altitude. As Nathan pulverized all climb rate and vertical speed records known to man, the heat emanating from Sylar's body became scalding, and started burning the newly-elected Congressman through his suit. He didn't let the madman go, though, even when he started struggling in his grasp. Petrelli ignored the enraged screams and insults coming from Sylar's mouth. He wouldn't let go.

Seven seconds, well into the stratosphere now and past the cloud layer. Beneath their feet, the Five Boroughs area had become a solid mass of light. They could even see the East Coast shoreline, from down in Baltimore all the way up to Connecticut. Embracing Sylar became a searing pain itself. Blisters appeared in Nathan's skin, and it was impossible to breathe without coughing.

Still, Nathan _couldn't_ let go.

Fifteen seconds. Roughly fifty kilometers up in the dark night sky, where the stratosphere began to give way to the ionosphere. It had gotten damned cold. Oxygen became sparse. They should both have been unconscious due to the g-force acceleration alone, and yet they weren't.

Radiation poisoning was severe, lethal. Nonetheless the Congressman kept flying upwards, faster and faster until he was so high he could see the curvature of Earth, and the sun rising, far away in the east.

It was breathtakingly beautiful.

Nathan stopped, and opened his arms. They were so high now that they had passed beyond the exosphere, the upper limit of the Earth's atmosphere itself. And although he and Sylar immediately started to fall down, the optical effect was of them floating weightless and drifting away from each other.

He saw horror and fear in Sylar's eyes, and his mouth forming a scream of denial, but Nathan was already deaf by this point, blood pouring out of his ears, nose and eyes, which froze over immediately after leaving his body and became tiny floating rubies. He twisted away, turning his back on the homicidal lunatic and facing the sunrise.

It was beautiful, oh so beautiful up there in the sky, where everything was perfect and calm. Where there was freedom and everything was as it should be.

Where Nathan Petrelli, the flying man, was truly happy.

Twenty seconds, and Sylar reached critical mass.

A second sun was briefly born at Nathan's back. He closed his eyes as the white light finally enveloped him in its deadly embrace. He thought of his home, of his family; of Heidi and his sons, of Peter and Claire, and even his mother.

And he knew he had done right.

---O---

In the end, Charles Deveaux had been proved right, even though no one would ever know it.

It hadn't been strength that had saved the world just now. It had been heart.

It had been love.

---O---

Down at Kirby Plaza, it didn't seem like victory to the survivors of this terrible night.

Cradled in Claire's arms, Peter Petrelli finally healed from his terrible wounds, as his heart and soul broke down and withered away.

His niece saw it, Peter's eyes gaining back their sight just in time to witness the final act of such a tragic play. The streak of condensed steam left in Nathan's wake, the supersonic boom as he broke the sound barrier. The ring of fire, high, high up in the sky as Sylar fulfilled the prophecy of the exploding man.

Someone was crying, but it wasn't him. It was Claire, crying for the birth father she would now never truly know, rocking his body as hers shook with grief.

Peter couldn't cry along with her. He simply couldn't feel a thing.

He heard the petite blonde calling his name as people started gathering around them. He saw faces hovering over him. Bennet. Mohinder. The blonde woman with the super-strength. A dark-skinned boy with curly hair. A little girl.

Peter heard voices, asking, wondering. Above all of them, he heard Claire calling for him over and over.

But he couldn't answer.

Peter felt himself detaching from all that surrounded him. Everything was becoming blurred and distant, just like when he had gone into that coma in Texas. He was flying away, escaping from the pain.

He was...

_...gone._

---O---

_To be continued..._


	2. Chapter One: Two Years Later

**Chapter One****: Two Years Later**

_Just one chance, just once breath  
Just in case there's one left  
'Cause you know  
That I love you  
That I love you all alone  
And I miss you  
You've been far away for far too long_

"Far away," Nickelback

_The boy in white walks aimlessly through the endless desert. He has no particular destination in mind, just like he has no name. He is not coming from anywhere in particular either, just like he can't remember when he actually started to wander amongst the near-identical sand dunes. _

_Now and then he stops and looks back, gazing at his own footprints. They stretch in perfect parallel lines all the way to the horizon, and he wonders for how long he has been walking across this empty vastness of desert sand. _

_He is fairly certain it has been for a lot longer than twenty minutes, and a lot less than twenty years. But here and now, it almost feels like he's been walking all his life, and so he can't be absolutely sure either way._

_After a couple of seconds, he turns again and resumes stride. _

_His feet take him in no particular direction, for there is no place he actually wants to go. If he walks towards the sun, that's because it's the only point of reference in this entire bleak land of emptiness. Oddly, it doesn't move in the cloudless blue sky. _

_And… it's the only thing that makes him remember. _

_Well, that's not exactly true. Because he doesn't remember anything. Not his name, not his own face, not what happened before he somehow made it here. But the sun makes him feel like he __**wants**__ to remember. _

_Like something on the tip of his tongue. A certain deus ex machina he is about to catch up with, but continuously eludes him._

_It's the __**goldenness**__ of it. It makes him think of something important. Somebody. _

_Somebody golden. _

_But that makes no sense. So he simply keeps walking. _

---O---

**Racine, Wisconsin  
May, 2009**

Carol O'Connor looked at the deck of playing cards spread, face-up, on the coffee table. _'It's impossible,'_ she thought._ 'Or very highly unlikely, at least.'_

She then raised her eyes to look at the man sitting across her. Her husband's expression was one full of smug mirth. "What did I tell you?"

"Let's try it again," she said stubbornly. She got the cards, and started shuffling them. "Don't look."

Bob O'Connor shook his head and sighed in resignation. "I won't look. Like I haven't looked the four previous times. I'm not cheating, sweetheart."

Carol gave him an admonishing look and so Bob shrugged, closing his eyes and craning his neck so his face was turned up towards the ceiling. It was impossible for him to see the cards as she quickly shuffled and mixed them over and over for the better part of five minutes.

"Honey? My neck hurts," he warned her.

Carol stopped and took in a deep breath. She laid her fingers on top of the uppermost card of the deck and was about to turn it over when he said, "Three of spades."

The 32-year-old woman placed the card on the table, face up. Three little spades looked at her accusingly from the shiny plastic surface.

She got ready to turn the next one, and he said, "Five of hearts."

And, indeed, that was the card she turned over.

"Six of spades." Correct.

"Jack of diamonds." Right.

"Seven of hearts." On the spot.

Again and again the result was the same. Fifty-two cards in the deck and fifty-two times Bob had guessed them right. It was… impossible. Or, as said, _very_ highly unlikely.

Carol leaned her chin on her hands as she considered the upturned cards. She felt lightheaded. She then, once more, raised her eyes to her husband's. He smiled and the gesture, far from being the source of comfort and complicity it always had been, made her feel like fainting. And not in the good sense.

The tiny, comfortable and usually reassuring world around her – the small living room in their cosy suburban home, her loving husband of five years and herself – was spinning out of control. None of this made any sense.

This was her husband, good old average Bob O'Connor. She loved him with all her heart, but he wasn't, and never had been, someone out of the ordinary. He relaxed on Sundays with a cold beer and a Green Bay Packers game. He had a nine-to-five white-collar job. He made her happy, but he was... normal.

At least, so he had seemed to be until now. But now he could see the future.

"We have to go see a doctor," she said with firm resolution.

Bob arched his eyebrows, not surprised. He'd known she was going to say that. "What for, exactly?"

"I don't know, but this, this… this is not normal," Carol realized she was a bit on the hysterical side, but right now she didn't really care. "There has got to be an explanation for this. Bob, thirty-three-year-old office workers don't just develop... powers like that all of a sudden! They start losing their hair and growing potbellies, not... this!"

The man considered his receding hairline and the slight beers-and-burgers-induced curvature of his belly. "I don't think all those things are mutually exclusive, hon. And the word you wanted to use there was _precognitive. _I looked it up in the dictionary."

Carol was starting to get a bit exasperated at her husband's apparent lighthearted take on the subject. "I'm serious, Bob! This could be… well, I don't know, the product of a brain tumor or something. You know, like in that John Travolta movie."

"Well, gee, you sure do know how to make a man feel at ease."

Sighing, Carol reached for her husband over the coffee table, and Bob took her hands in his. "Honey, I don't want to scare you. And I don't want to be scared myself, either. I just want you to be okay-"

"But I _am _okay," he said simply, smiling deeply and with candor. "In fact, I feel better than I've ever felt before. Why can't you see this is a blessing?"

"Robert," Carol looked intensely into his eyes. She had used his full name, and she only ever did that when she was about to be dead serious. "You can see the future."

"Yeah, but only, like, thirty seconds into it, to be exact," he puntualized.

"Thirty seconds, one hour, one year, I don't care! It is not _okay. _It is not normal!"

"But it's not necessarily bad, either!" Bob was amazed she couldn't see this in the same light as himself. This... special thing that had happened to him. "Think of what we can do now!"

"Like what, exactly? You said it yourself, it's only thirty seconds."

"Still enough time to guess what card is coming next. Enough to go to Vegas and clean up at the blackjack table, baby," he grinned like a small boy.

Carol rolled her eyes. "That´s all you can think of? A get-rich-quick plan?"

"Well, why not?" Bob gestured around them. "Is this where you want to spend the rest of our lives?"

Carol leaned back into the sofa, hugging herself. She felt suddenly very cold. "It's not a bad place." It was _their _place, and that meant a lot to her.

"But it could be better," he insisted. "Think about it: a bigger house, better cars, not having to constantly slave away at work just to make ends meet anymore... We could finally start a family. Kids, Carol."

That was her big weak point, and they both understood that he knew it. And Carol hated Bob a little bit for exploiting her desires that way. "It could be dangerous. You've seen enough movies and TV shows to know what they do to cheaters over there, haven't you?"

"But I _won't _be cheating!"

Bob had obviously never seen any movie directed by Martin Scorsese. Carol, on the other hand, had watched them all. "Those guys don't care what they can prove or disprove, in or out of a courtroom. You take them to the cleaners that way and they will bury you somewhere out in the desert where they'll never find your body!"

Her husband frowned, wondering where she got those ideas. "So then we don't get too greedy. We don't need to become millionaires all at once, we'll play it slow and smart. A few thousand here, a few thousand there. Lose some money as well, just often enough so as not to arouse suspicion. We have also Reno and Atlantic City. And all those Indian casinos that are opening up everywhere. We can do this, baby."

Carol was almost convinced, but still worried. "What if anybody finds out? What if the government finds out? I don't want you to be turned into some sort of guinea pig!"

At this, Bob could only grin. "Baby, you watch far too much TV for your own good. This is real life, there's no such thing as the men in black."

Bob suddenly became alert and frowned. "Oh, the door."

As if on cue, the doorbell rang.

They looked at each other. Carol was worried, but Bob was only amused. She checked her watch; it was almost seven in the evening. "Who could that be?"

As he stood and moved to open the house's main door, her husband gave her a naughty look. "Maybe it's the men in black!"

Carol threw a cushion at him and he dodged it, laughing. Still giggling, Bob opened the door without bothering to check who was at the other side through the peephole. This was a safe, calm neighbourhood, and the bad guys didn't ring the doorbell, did they?

There were a couple of men waiting on the other side of the threshold. They dressed in black suits, black ties and white shirts. Bob gulped at once, noisily. Well, at least they weren't wearing black sunglasses.

"Robert O'Connor?" one of them asked. He was a man in his late forties, with greying hair. He had a severe, professional expression.

The other was younger, maybe in his late thirties, had a thin stubble and seemed bored out of his mind. But he had piercing eyes, and they were set on him.

"Y-yes..." Bob answered doubtfully. "Who are you?"

"Robert Donovan O'Connor?" the man asked again, while his hand went inside his jacket.

Bob panicked. He tried to use his recently-discovered ability to foresee something, but he only managed to make it work when he was calm and concentrated. Now he was anything but that. His knees were actually shaking.

He could only nod slowly. Carol was the movie freak of them two, but right now Bob felt himself in her proverbial shoes as he pictured one of the few films he could actually remember. In his mind's eye, the man in black was suddenly replaced by Arnold Schwarzenegger in _The Terminator. _He was pulling out an uncannily big gun, and was about to shoot him in the head...

The man, on the other hand, simply got a plain leather wallet and flipped it open in order to show him a shiny police badge. "Good evening, I'm Detective Ditko. This is Detective Cockrum, we're with the Racine Police Department."

Bob's heart started to beat again at a pace resembling normalcy, and he released a breath he didn't know he had been holding. "Hi. What can I help you with?"

"Mr. O'Connor, do you own a Smith & Wesson .38-caliber revolver, serial number ahhh..." Detective Ditko produced a small piece of paper from the pocket of his jacket and read it aloud. "Serial number N-H-3452456?"

Bob frowned, deeply puzzled. "Well, yes, I have a revolver. I don't remember the serial number, though. I bought it last year, for home protection; it was all perfectly legal. I have the papers and everything to prove it."

"Mr. O'Connor, we've been led to believe your gun might have been used to commit a crime." Anticipating Bob's obvious protest, Detective Ditko raised a conciliatory hand. "Like you just said, we know that you bought that gun legally at an authorized gun shop. But the owner of said store is currently under investigation for dealing in illegal weapons. We think your Smith & Wesson is one of several handguns that were stolen last year from the Racine PD's evidence vault."

"Uh, y-yes, I-I think I read something about that in the papers." It wasn't true, but Bob didn't want to sound like the fool he was starting to feel that he was.

"May we come in?" Cockrum spoke for the first time. He sounded impatient.

"Of course," Bob stood aside and let the plain-clothes policemen walk into his house.

"Bob, what's going on?" Carol asked, worried as she stood from the sofa.

"Everything is okay, honey, don't worry," her husband calmed her down. "These police officers just want to have a look at my gun."

"Police detectives," Cockrum corrected him harshly. "Officers wear a uniform, and mostly just give you parking tickets."

"I'm sorry."

Ditko gave his partner a sour look before turning back to the married couple. "Mrs. O'Connor, we're sorry for disturbing both of you, but we need to see your husband's revolver. And if it's indeed the one we're looking for, I'm afraid we'll have to impound it."

"Do you have a warrant for that?" Carol asked defiantly. For some reason, she didn't like these men.

"Honey!" Bob was scandalized. "These off-, er, detectives are just doing their job!"

"I still would like to see some kind of ID."

"Of course," the older cop produced his shield again and so did his partner, albeit with a frown of exasperation.

Carol examined both men's ID cards and badges. They seemed real enough to her, but to be honest, there was no way she could have known if they were not. "So what happened with this gun, then?"

"Some asshole used it to blow his wife's brains out all over the wall," Cockrum spat out sharply, obviously taking delight in the cringe that his words produced in the couple. "Then he put it in his own mouth and pulled the trigger."

Grinning, He mimicked the action and the sound of a gunshot. "Made a real mess."

Ditko gave Bob a somewhat apologetic glance. "We need to see that revolver, Mr. O'Connor. The sooner we do that, the sooner we can get out of your hair."

"I'll go get it," Carol said.

"I'm sorry, ma'am," the older policeman stopped her. "But I'm afraid that's against regulations. Detective Cockrum will accompany you. If you'd be so kind as to tell him where you keep the gun, he'll retrieve it. Chain of evidence and all that."

The suburban housewife's distaste for Cockrum was obvious as she stared at him, but she could only nod as the young cop produced a couple of latex gloves and snapped them on with a smile. "Follow me, then. It's upstairs, in the bedside table."

Leaving her husband with Ditko, Carol led Cockrum to the second floor of their small home and into the main bedroom. The younger cop observed, "You have a nice place here. Very cosy."

"It's in the drawer," Carol pointed to the bedside table, ignoring his comment. "And I'll be glad to see it gone; I never wanted it here in the first place."

Cockrum slid the drawer open and indeed there was the tiny .38 snubnose, all oily dark metal and curved wooden stock resting among Bob O'Connor's underwear. He retrieved the handgun and examined the 5-shot drum. It was fully loaded.

"Hollow points," he observed, arching his brow. "They're illegal for civilian use."

Carol muted a curse under her breath. "Are Bob and I in trouble then?"

The police detective grinned as he shook his head. "Don't worry, I won't tell a soul."

Cockrum then rose and shot the housewife point-blank, right in her forehead.

Bob saw it all around thirteen seconds before it acatually happened. He was downstairs, uncomfortably shifting on his feet as he tried to make small talk with the older detective. "This is such a shame, I feel like an idiot..."

"It's not your fault, sir," Ditko said, his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "You had no way to know."

Still, Bob felt like he owed some kind of apology or explanation. He had too much respect for the law and its enforcement officials. "I just wanted to keep my wife and I safe."

Ditko's eyes briefly darted to his, and Bob – for some reason – thought he saw something flicker in them. For half a heartbeat, he thought it was guilt. Yet the policeman mustered a sympathetic smile. "That's what we all want, don't we? To keep our families safe."

Bob returned the smile with candor, and then he saw it. The images came unbidden, but clear. Clearer than ever before, like he was living them.

Like he was the one holding the gun, and Carol's face was right in front of him. Shocked, scared. And then there was a tiny red hole in her forehead and her head jerked back, while a thin rain of what had to be blood and brain tissue sprayed the wall behind her.

His mouth went dry and his stomach revolved in nausea. He muttered her name as his legs went wobbly.

Ditko rushed to hold him before he could fall, and whispered, "I'm sorry."

The gunshot rang out upstairs. Bob felt like his heart had stopped dead.

Smoothly, the fake police detective produced a small needle gun from the pocket of his jacket and quickly injected his victim in the shoulder with it. A powerful derivative of curare suddenly found itself flowing through Bob O'Connor's veins, pumped at the speed of his now-racing heart.

Bob's nerves were on fire, but his body quickly became numb and, in just a mere couple of seconds, he lost all control over all his muscles. He couldn't even gather enough will to close his eyelids.

His eyes were full of terror.

"I'm really sorry," Ditko repeated, holding him up. Hilariously, Bob felt like the guy was actually being sincere.

Cockrum came walking down the stairs, with the smoking gun still in his hand. "Done."

"Help me out here," Ditko commanded him. Between the two of them, they dragged the inert Bob O'Connor through the house to the small study on the first floor, where he kept a tiny desk with a cheap home computer.

The two men sat their victim in the wheeled office chair. Bob tried to say something, but he only succeeded in uttering a small groan. Silent and professionally, Cockrum moved to the computer as Ditko snapped a pair of latex gloves in his hands.

The younger assassin got out a small USB flash memory drive from his pocket and inserted it into the computer's port, booting it up. Ditko asked him, "Pass me the gun."

Cockrum complied as the computer started. The virus program in the USB drive automatically bypassed Bob's password and immediately began to install itself into the computer, copying new files and modifying existing ones into the hard drive.

Meanwhile, the older man put the revolver in Bob's right hand and curled his fingers around the butt and the trigger. He bent the man's arm until he was able to insert the short barrel into his mouth.

Ditko looked into the man's eyes. Bob was crying as the assassin cocked the hammer with an ominous mechanical click. "Sorry, Bob. I wish there was another way."

But alas, there wasn't – at least in Ditko's mind – and the older man tightened his finger around Bob's one. The hammer fell and the firing pin hit the tiny piston at the butt of the .38 caliber cartridge, inflaming the powder encased within its cylindrical brass body.

The expanding gasses pushed the lead and steel projectile through the short barrel and into Bob's brain through the roof of his mouth at a few feet per second shy of supersonic velocity, hollowing out his cheeks for a second like the ones of a blowfish. The tiny pea-like slug deformed and enlarged as it impacted with hard bone and blasted through brain tissue, until it became the size of a quarter when it emerged through the back of Bob's skull.

The gunshot took all of Bob O'Connor's memories, dreams, hopes and expectations along with his life, and splattered them onto the wall at his back into an awful Impressionist painting.

Reverently, Ditko accompanied the dead man's hand until it rested on his lap, still grasping the revolver. When the real police would find him, they'd have no reason to believe Bob O'Connor hadn't died by his own hand.

His vacant eyes stared accusingly at the older man, but Ditko resisted the impulse to close them. The less he touched, the better.

At only a meter and a half away, a seemingly uninterested Cockrum was printing a pre-written document on Bob's computer. His suicide note.

_To whom it may concern:_

_I'm sorry, but I can't take it any longer. It's too hard and painful to see what I've become. I can't go on. I'm sorry about Carol, but I'm doing this to let her avoid the shame and the pain of ever finding out the truth. Mom, dad, I'm sorry. I love you._

He retrieved a pen from the desk and quickly signed Bob's name. He had been practicing the forgery for hours, and nobody short of an expert graphologist would notice any difference from the real one. Anyway, the cops would have no reason to check with such an expert.

They would find what the virus had inserted into the hard drive: a shameful collection of filthy child porn, and electronic footprints of Bob's visits to several known pedophile chat rooms.

There was nothing that law enforcement liked more than a simple and open-and-shut case, with a nice red bow on top.

They would conclude that Bob O'Connor, apparently a regular and law-abiding citizen of Racine, Wisconsin, was actually an avid Internet pedophile. In a moment of clarity and self-loathing, he had taken his own life. Sadly, but not uncommonly, he had also murdered his wife for her to avoid the horrified shame she would surely go through when it was all found out.

They would have no need – or even interest – in looking any further than the superficial evidence. The pictures and information on the hard drive, the suicide note printed from his own home computer, on his own paper and – after Cockrum carefully applied his blood-free left hand on it – with his fingerprints all over it. The gunpowder burns on his hand would offer no doubt.

Only an expert could cast doubt over the authenticity of the signature, yet there was no reason to consult one. Only a detailed toxicology test would find traces of the drug in his blood, but the cops would never ask for one.

Gunshots don't make such a huge noise like they do in the movies and on TV, and the dull blast of a .38 wouldn't have been heard outside the walls of the house by any neighbour. It would be at least twelve hours until somebody – maybe a colleague from either of their respective jobs – would notice their absence. A whole day until the police would find the bodies.

Murder/suicide. Hell in suburban paradise, but real life in modern-day America nonetheless.

The assassins retrieved the USB drive from the computer, checked they had not touched anything without their gloves on, and left the house and the two cooling corpses in it.

In less than a minute, they were out and inside of an unmarked Dodge Charger, driving away. Unnoticed.

Invisible.

"They had a pretty nice place there," Cockrum said, from behind the steering wheel. "I'm guessing the value of the property will really plummet after this, though."

Ditko gave him a sour look. He didn't like making small talk during these assignments. But he understood Cockrum's condition, so he said nothing. He was younger, more inexperienced. He needed to talk in order to deal with the burdens of the job. Unlike himself, for he wasn't comforted by the reason behind their actions.

They were saving the world.

---O_---_

_The endless surface of the desert shimmer__s like a wide lake, looming ahead of him._

_The boy in white – and indeed he is wearing nothing more than a white shirt and white linen trousers, bare feet digging in the sand as he walks – thinks that __it has just to be a mirage. _

_He doesn't rush, for he is not thirsty and the day is not as hot as it should be under the cloudless sun. _

_This place isn't a real desert, he suddenly realizes. It's not the lack of water killing all the vegetation and eons of wind reducing mountains to grains of sand._

_This place is just emptiness. It's lack of life._

_This place is not real. _

_Yet, the boy in white doesn't really care. He has no reason to. He just keeps on walking, although he has no reason to do that either._

_But then, he wonders, if all this isn't real, if the fake, unmoving sun perched up in the spotless blue sky gives off no real heat, then what's causing the mirage?_

_Or maybe __**this whole place**__ is an optical illusion itself. _

_And it indeed turns out to be not a heat-generated false image. It's an ocean. _

_A v__ast sea that stretches as far as the horizon, calm as the last second before death, blue as the sky above his head._

_Soft, tiny waves wash onto the shore with an easy murmur, although the boy only feels the breeze causing them when his bare feet finally reach it and the water – so nicely warm it invites nothing but to plunge head-first into it – bathes his ankles with white foamy surf._

_Suddenly, there is somebody else present. The boy is willing to swear there was nobody but himself a heartbeat ago. But he doesn't do a double take or actually become shocked by this sudden apparition. He only regards the other man with mild curiosity. _

_He is a black man, older than himself. Probably in his sixties, but there is an ageless quality about him that makes the boy feel like he could be actually a thousand years old. He is also dressed in white, with identical garments, although the sleeves of his shirt and the legs of his trousers are rolled up, to the elbows and the knees respectively. _

_He is also wearing a straw hat, and is sitting down on a reclining wood chair one meter away from the shoreline. There is a simple fishing cane nailed into the sand, the line lost in the soft crashing waters. _

_At that moment the boy knows his name, and __**this**__ surprises him. _

_The black man smiles warmly as he looks up at the boy, recognition and pleasure in his gentle dark eyes. And, tilting his straw hat back, Charles Deveaux greets his young friend. _

"_Hello, Peter. It's been a long time."_

---O---

**Long Island, New York**  
**May, 2009**

Claire Bennet had worked all summer last year as a waitress in order to save up enough money to buy a car. It had been a hard job, and the tips were nothing to write home about, but in the end she'd gathered the required $500 to purchase a 20-year-old Volkswagen Rabbit Convertible.

The tiny vehicle would win nobody over in looks alone – the yellow paint was faded, the upholstery was worn and stained, the convertible canvas roof couldn't actually be pulled down and some of the dials on the dashboard simply refused to work at all – but she loved it all the same. It was the first expensive thing she had ever bought with money earned by nothing save her own hard work, and it was not only an icon of her soon-to-be-gained independence, but represented her first steps into adulthood as well.

Granted that during New York's chilly winter, she needed at least fifteen minutes to get it started, but once the engine warmed up there was no fault to be found with the solid German engineering. The wheels were new, the brakes spotless and all the really important bits and pieces actually worked fine when she needed them to. All in consideration, she couldn't really complain.

And damn it, she _needed_ the car.

Otherwise, it would have been well nigh impossible to see Peter as much as she did.

Claire would be graduating high school in less than two months, and she had already been accepted as a freshman at NYU. The discussion about her leaving the Bennet home to move into a campus dorm was still an ongoing battle, though.

Right now, her family lived in a three-bedroom house in a middle-class neighborhood in Queens, where they had relocated after the events at Kirby Plaza two and a half years ago. Noah Bennet had quit his job at the Primatech paper company – the behind-the-counter activities might have ceased after Linderman's demise, but the paper company itself was still a surprisingly solid business – and now worked with Dr. Suresh.

Regarding her imminent departure from the family nest, there were no clearly defined sides. Or, better said, there were too many for her liking.

Her father wasn't exactly keen on the whole notion, if not downright hostile to it. He'd argued that the campus wasn't so far away that Claire actually needed to move, and he claimed to be worried about her safety if he wasn't there to watch over her.

She'd parried that he actually worked at the university – Mohinder's research, although generously funded by Yamagato Industries, was actually a legitimate part of the science faculty. And anyway, he now spent even more time away from home than he did while being an employee of Primatech, running all around the country with the professor in search for more of the new species of evolved humans.

Her mother didn't want to see her little girl grown up and gone so quickly either, but her worries were more mundane. Mrs. Bennet was worried about boys, and drugs, and fraternity parties and losing her daughter to the alien culture of NYU. Claire had tried to ease her concerns as best as she could. There was no way her mom would ever lose her. She was a Bennet, Texan if not by blood then by a bond even stronger than that: the one of love freely given and accepted.

Lyle, her brother, simply looked forward to take over her bedroom; which was a lot larger than his. He was a brat, but she loved him anyway.

And it wasn't like she was going to be all alone and far away. It was just a 45-minute drive to the college campus, for God's sake.

Even though Claire had been accepted by other – more prestigious – universities, there was no way she could move to the other side of the country, to Berkeley or UCLA, for example. There was one person that needed her here in New York, the only one apart from her father that she knew would give his life to protect her. The only one who had actually died for her.

There was no way Claire Bennet was going to leave Peter Petrelli here all alone.

All these thoughts, and more, were in her mind as she drove the yellow Rabbit into the parking lot of the Synger Rest Home.

It was one of the last Victorian era mansions left standing in the upper-class haven that was Long Island. The building had passing from hand to hand until it was finally fully restored and reformed into an expensive retirement home, for the very elderly and mentally disabled.

Claire always felt ambivalent upon arriving there. The place was gorgeous, with nice gardens and beautiful yet homelike decoration, but it all seemed a bit too much of a façade used by the socialites to hide their shameful secrets. Secrets of the kind they didn't dare to look in the face.

She made an effort to come here at least twice a week, but often she found herself passing through the gates more frequently than that. This was supposed to be a refuge for the outcasts of society's upper crust; those whose minds, because of age or other reasons, had snapped and couldn't take care of themselves anymore – or were a source of uncomfortable shame for their families. But sometimes, Claire felt it was also a refuge for herself.

Here was where Peter Petrelli spent his days, watching life pass by without being able to interact with it.

The blonde girl collected her backpack from the trunk, locked her car and walked towards the front door. She was not supposed to park up front, for it was reserved for the home's staff only, but she came so often and was so well known by the caretakers and nurses that no one ever told her anything. She was one of them, although she only cared about one patient in particular.

She was greeted at the reception desk by Martha, a motherly African-American woman who liked her very much. "Claire, dear! Welcome back!"

"Hi, Martha, how's everything going? How's Howard and the kids?" she smiled warmly at the woman.

"Oh, they're nothing but trouble," the woman rolled her eyes, causing Claire to laugh. "What about you? Finally managed to convince your dad to play ball about moving out?"

"Ah, the jury's still out on that one, I'm afraid. How is he?"

Martha's smile turned into a knowing one. It had been a couple of days since the Texan girl had visited, longer than usual. She knew that the blonde was very busy, getting ready for the final exams of her last year at high school and all, but it was clear that she felt a bit guilty for letting so much time pass by between visits.

Ironic, considering most of the residents of the Synger Home were only visited a couple times a month as much.

"Your Peter's alright... well, you know, as alright as he can be, considering the circumstances."

'_Your Peter'._ The mere sound of those words warmed Claire's belly as much as the addition of _'considering the circumstances'_ chilled her insides.

"I'll go check on him," she managed to continue smiling. "I'll see you on my way out?"

Martha nodded. "I'll be here, sweetheart. Now hurry up, he's been waiting for you."

Yes indeed. There was not much else Peter Petrelli could do than wait for her.

Holding onto the strap of her backpack, the Texan girl moved further into the mansion until she reached the main staircase. She took the steps two at a time and felt her heart beating faster as she came closer to Peter's room.

The door was open, as usual, as that made it easier for the caretakers to check on the patients. She stopped a few steps away from the threshold. There was a mirror in the hallway and, like she always did, Claire checked her appearance before going in.

Claire found that she was not very pleased with what she saw. She had been exercising before driving to the rest home, and her clothes were a shiny red Adidas tracksuit and matching sneakers. Her golden hair was pulled into a comfortable ponytail and she wore no makeup. She thought she still looked sixteen.

Claire was no more into cheerleading, though. The events that had led her to that fateful night at Kirby Plaza, and what had happened afterwards, had forced her to mature faster than anyone that loved her, and she herself, would have wished. Cheerleading now seemed a useless and infantile activity. Although she sometimes missed it and the innocence it represented, she was quickly moving on from there.

But it didn't mean she had forsaken physical exercise altogether. Far from it, she now went to the gym almost with feverish zeal. Not that it was some obsession with her figure or anything; she ate healthy and still indulged now and then in candy and ice-cream. The result was that her petite body – maybe childishly attractive in the past – was maturing into the one of a stunningly beautiful woman.

But she didn't feel like it when she looked at herself in the mirror.

The blonde girl saw only the reflection of a scared cheerleader staring back at her, the very same one who had almost been killed by Sylar years ago.

Claire loosened her ponytail and checked that her long golden curls had a more presentable appearance. She stopped trying after a couple of minutes, though, when she realized the futility of such an act.

'_What are you trying to do?'_ she asked herself. '_Impress him?'_

Silly, silly little girl.

Sighing, Claire knocked on the doorframe and walked into the room. "Hello there? Look who's dropped in to check on her favorite uncle?"

The word _'uncle'_ almost choked on her lips. It always did.

Peter was sitting in a wheelchair, facing the only window in the stance. He didn't turn to greet her or even flinch in the slightest at her entrance. But that was okay with her, because he never did it anyway.

Claire left her backpack on the bed and quickly went to hug the young man. She planted a chaste yet warm kiss on his cheek, and got poked by his two-day-old stubble.

Peter didn't move a muscle.

"I'm sorry not to have dropped by sooner, but I've been going crazy with my finals and all the homework," she apologized, kneeling down to look into his face. "You're not mad at me, are you?"

His eyes didn't flicker towards her. Peter just continued staring out through the window, immobile.

Her smile became sad, but Claire fought to keep it on her lips. "I knew you wouldn't."

Extreme state of fugue, the doctors had called it. An intense form of catatonia provoked by such a traumatic experience that his mind had been unable to deal with it and had shattered like fragile glass, only to submerge deep into itself in order to escape from the pain.

They had inquired into such an event and had gotten the same sanitized version of the truth that had been fed to the media. Namely, Peter Petrelli had witnessed the abduction and probably the murder of his brother Nathan – a recently elected Congressman – at the hands of the same criminals he'd been fighting to bring to justice: the infamous Linderman syndicate from Las Vegas.

Linderman himself had been found dead not long after Nathan Petrelli's disappearance, his murder having been attributed to a power struggle within the crime group itself. The name of D.L. Hawkins had never once surfaced. Furthermore, the young Congressman's body had never been actually found, and he had become an urban legend, a sort of modern-day Jimmy Hoffa.

The truth, enclosed in the mind of a young man that couldn't talk – and only known by a few others that wouldn't –, had been swept under the rug. With no witnesses available and no evidence to be found, no arrests were ever made.

The result: Peter Petrelli, a man that couldn't move, couldn't talk and couldn't hear. A living dead hostage of his own broken soul.

After a few weeks, the doctors had claimed there was nothing they could do to help him. If Peter was ever to break out of his shell, it would be in his own time, and only by his own will. Their tone had suggested they doubted such a moment would ever arrive.

That very same day, a crying Claire Bennet - who had spent every waking moment at his hospital bedside - was contacted by a lawyer claiming to represent the interests of the Petrelli family. She was politely informed that arrangements had been made: Peter would be taken to a rest home where he would be cared for but she was invited to visit him whenever she wanted. A trust fund had been created on her name, and it would be her decision to tell anyone she wanted that she was a Petrelli herself by blood, if she wished to do so.

When the cheerleader had later met Heidi Petrelli and her children at the hospital, she didn't have the heart to tell them she was the illegitimate offspring of their late husband and father. She couldn't muster enough strength to reveal that she was Heidi's step-daughter and half-sister to her sons. Between tears, she had simply told them she was a friend of Peter's.

They had cried together.

She'd asked for Angela Petrelli. Claire wanted, _needed_ to face her. She wanted explanations, she wanted answers, she wanted the older woman to tell her what would happen now with all her brilliantly, carefully built plans.

Mostly, Claire wanted to bitch-slap her grandma all the way down Madison Avenue. But she had vanished off the face of the Earth, like her first-born son.

At Nathan's funeral, when they'd buried an empty casket with military and governmental honors, she'd seen a car drive by and stop while the Catholic priest gave his eulogy. She'd broken into a run as soon as he finished, but the windows were deeply tinted and the driver sped away even before Claire could come close enough for inspection.

She'd had stolen from her that kind of closure, like she had stolen so many other things.

Heidi and the kids visited Peter now and then. Not as often as Claire did, but then, why should they do that? If their visits happened to coincide at the same time, the Texan girl just kept her distance as best she could. They never stayed for long anyway. It was too morbid and unsettling for the boys, and too painful a reminder for Heidi.

Angela paid the bills, but she had never once showed up there, as far as Claire knew.

Her trust fund remained untouched.

And so she came over and over to visit him. She was Peter's lifeline to the real world, hoping against all odds that he would hold onto her, use her healing ability to drag himself out of darkness and into the light.

Wishing that she could save him like he had saved all of them.

So Claire came and talked to him. She told him stories of her everyday existence, both sad and happy, because she wanted Peter to be a part of her life. She spoke of her two families; of the one she had grown up with and the surrogate one she had gained from the strangers brought together by fate at Kirby Plaza on a moonless night of November.

Stories about her mom and Mr. Muggles. Complaints about her pest of a brother. The tales of her dad's and Mohinder's research and the new evolved people they found and tried to help. Of Molly, who Dr. Suresh had officially adopted, who lived with them when the man from New Delhi went out on field work, and who had become a little sister to her. And to Lyle too – much to her surprise, his adoptive brother had warmed so much to the Walker Tracking System, he was her official protector from bullies at school.

Of Niki – who was this awesome big sister figure and knew loads of cool things about martial arts, guns and stuff – and D.L., who she had been a bit scared of at the beginning but had turned out to be this big bear, soft-hearted man she now called _Uncle D._ They had relocated to New York like the Bennets, and had a small security and body-guarding company that was becoming quite successful. And they helped Dad and Mohinder too, when they needed somebody who could do the cloak-and-dagger stuff.

Of their son Micah, who she babysat along with Molly. Amazing, funny, smart Micah, whom she loved to watch beating the shit out of Lyle on the PlayStation and who was such a wonderful boy and wise beyond his age at the same time.

Of the hijinks and adventures of Hiro and Ando, her cousins from the land of the rising sun. They were the ones that had changed the most, apart from herself.

Hiro had returned from his vanishing act on the night of the exploding man and given no explanations of where he had been or what had happened to him. But something had happened to him, that was for sure. Although he retained his exuberance and indomitable optimistic look at life, there was a certain sadness when you looked into his dark, spectacled eyes. Wherever, whenever he had been, a part of his innocence had been left behind when he came back.

Ando on the other hand was now the important business executive, acting as the liaison between Yamagato Industries and the Accelerated Evolution Project that Mohinder carried on. He dressed in smart suits and drove a Lexus convertible. He was a hit with the babes too, apparently. But still, he always let himself get embroiled in whatever superheroic madcap Hiro would come up with. He was, in short, the eternal, good natured sidekick.

And let's not forget about Uncle Matt... oh, sorry, _Special Agent Matt Parkman, with the FBI._ The Bureau's top interrogator and latest wonderkid, the man with all the answers and the name feared by all criminals. Because you couldn't hide the truth from Matt. Because, legend said, he could read your mind.

Claire took delight in calling him Agent Spatzman and then tickle his love handles. He was extremely ticklish, and giggled like a valley girl when she did so.

He had put on a brave face for everybody else, but Parkman had broken down in tears when she hugged him the day his wife left him for good, taking their infant son with her.

They had all come together on that moonless night of November 2006, by fate or chance. And they had decided to stick together because... well, as D.L. liked to say, who was gonna take care of them freaks but themselves?

That was her new, strange, exciting, wonderful, sad, happy, boring, normal and not normal at all life. And Claire wanted Peter to be part of it, more than she sometimes wished her old life back.

She came day after day, talked to him, wished against all hope that a tiny part of him would actually be listening, hearing her, even though he was never able to talk back. She played music for him, both from her own eclectic collection of modern tunes and old-fashioned country and western, and CD's she'd retrieved from his apartment. Although diametrally different, his tastes were also varied: jazz and classic – _boooring_ – and emo, romantic, whatever pop-rock – Snow Patrol good, Linkin Park so early 2000's, Avril Lavigne... Peter, _really?_

She also brought books and read to him. He had loads of poetry at his place; Coleridge, Tennyson, Frost, Neruda. Or maybe a girly magazine she picked up on her way from school. Or a Tom Clancy novel from her dad, whatever.

Sometimes Claire just sat in silence at his side and looked though the window like he did for entire hours, speaking to him with her mind, praying the telepathy she had picked from Matt would still be active. What scared her the most was that somehow he was still conscious in there, just unable to communicate normally.

It terrified her to even think in the possibility that his eyes were blind although they were open, that he was deaf and mute but conscious, screaming within his head, and nobody could hear him.

'_I'm here, Peter. Don't be scared. I'm with you. I'll never leave you alone.'_

' _Please come back to us, Peter.'_

'_Come back to me._'

Sometimes she pleaded with and begged him for something, anything. Just a little sign. Just the slightest twitch of a muscle. Anything. Anything to let her know he was not gone for good.

Sometimes Claire got angry with frustration. And she yelled and shouted at him until she was red in the face and there were tears running down her cheeks. She called him a selfish coward. She wanted to punch him senseless. She wanted to cause him pain, see if _that_ would make him react to her.

Didn't he want to come back? Didn't he want to be a part of her life? Didn't he believe anymore in that fate that had brought them together?

Didn't he love her like she loved him?

Those times she stormed off out of his room, ran to the garden outside and cried herself into a stupor.

But she always came back, to kiss him on the cheek and tell him goodbye. To tell him she was sorry and she knew it wasn't his fault, and sorry again for being such an impatient, stupid girl. To promise him she would be back.

And she was the next day. With music. Or a book. Or a good, funny Hiro and Ando story.

Peter never reacted. He was like a life-sized Ken doll, staying in any position you left him in. Sitting or lying down. Eyes always open, yet sightless. The caretakers added eye drops constantly, because he never blinked and they feared he might become actually blind if they let them dry. She volunteered to do it whenever she was around, although Claire knew it wasn't really necessary. Just by being around, she would help him heal of any physical problem he might have.

His mind and heart... Claire wished she could do the same.

He always had an IV attached to the back of his left hand. He was fed by a tube down his throat and he had a catheter inserted for his body's necessities. Because the few things he could actually do, he did them mechanically. He breathed and he swallowed his saliva, and that was all.

But he didn't munch food or swallow food, even if it was pureed. He didn't drink. He would die of starvation or thirst if left unattended. He couldn't go to the toilet on his own.

Peter Petrelli, a young man with the potential to be the most powerful being in the world, was one of the living dead. Even more fragile and defenseless than a newborn baby.

But he still had Claire Bennet, and for as long as she lived, he wouldn't be alone.

This evening, she chatted about everything and nothing at the same time after loading an old Nickelback album on the portable CD player she had bought Peter for his last birthday. Dad and Mohinder were out to check on some guy from their ever-growing list, in Wisconsin of all places; Ando was dating some model this week and some paparazzi had snapped pictures of them at a nightclub, which had angered Hiro because _'heroes have to keep their secret identities, well, secret'_ to which Micah had retorted _'what about Bruce Wayne?'_

Claire turned the volume down so the powerful ballads would be in the background and then went into the toilet – all rooms in the rest home had private facilities – to retrieve his toiletries. She came back with shaving foam, a towel, a brand new razor and a small basin full of steamy hot water.

She had never minded his day-old beard when he'd been functional, it suited his post-metrosexual dark looks. But longer than that made Peter look positively uncared for, specially considering the waxy paleness of his skin these days.

"Time to get cute," the blonde girl smiled down at her quiet uncle, maneuvering so she wouldn't be in the way of the light coming through the window. "Can't have you looking like a reject from Celebrity Survivor."

Claire gently tilted his head back and tucked his rebel-long bangs behind his right ear. The rest home's caretakers always insisted on cutting his hair almost into a military buzz cut, arguing it would be more hygienic and practical, but she never let them do it. She was fond of those bangs and the way they used to fall to cover his right eye.

Or maybe, Claire sometimes admitted to herself, they were just a good excuse to innocently reach out and touch him.

She put the towel around his neck, made a ball of foam in her left hand and carefully used her right to apply it on his face. She smoothed it evenly under his nose, his cheeks and chin and on his throat. With her petite index finger, she cleaned a line over his lips.

His very kissable lips...

'_Stop. Stop that line of thought right there, you silly girl,'_ Claire thought angrily as she cleaned her hands with the towel and forced herself to look away from his mouth. '_We talked about this, remember? You're not sixteen anymore. You don't hero-worship him. Besides... He. Is. Your. Uncle.'_

Period.

Retrieving the razor, she took a deep breath and turned back to him. Peter hadn't moved an inch.

With loving care, Claire slowly started to slide the razor down his left cheek first, then the right one. Going upwards, she smoothly shaved his throat, and was extremely gentle when it was the turn to go over his Adam's apple.

Claire worked in silence, cleaning the blade now and then with the warm water in the basin. The first time she had tried to do this, she had nicked him in at least four different places and had been mortified when she realized how much blood was on the towel after cleaning his face. The fact that all those small cuts had healed immediately had relieved her only mildly.

But practice makes perfection, and by this time she managed to give the unresponsive young man a smooth close shave without spilling a drop of his precious blood.

"There you go, all clean and handsome again," she smiled softly, as she wiped off the excess of foam with the towel. "This smooth enough for you? Yes?"

Cupping his face in her petite hands, she made him look at her. Well, she turned his face until she could settle her eyes on his, Claire didn't know if he could see her at all. She wished he could.

Gently, moved by a sudden impulse, Claire placed her cheek next to his, using her own delicate skin just to check that the shave had been smooth enough. It was only that. Promise and cross her heart.

Then, satisfied, she started to move away...

...and her lips brushed by his mouth for the briefest of moments. Nothing more than the gossamer of a caress and the warmth of his breath on her sensitive skin.

Her crossed heart stopped beating.

Temptation was becoming unbearable.

She was not quite pressing her mouth to his. There was the slightest breathing space between them. But it would be so easy to...

Oh no, Claire Bennet didn't have issues with the opposite sex. Not after almost getting raped two and a half years ago. And not after her friend Zach had gotten his mind altered by that Haitian who worked for her grandmother, the memories of their friendship erased into oblivion by the pseudo-mute man.

And she _didn't _want to kiss her uncle. No, she didn't.

But she couldn't move away either.

Padded footsteps were heard on the hallway outside the room. The door was wide open.

Claire jerked back like she'd been hit by lightning just as a young nurse walked into Peter's room, humming a song under her breath and completely oblivious to what she had just interrupted.

Nothing. She had interrupted nothing. Nothing would have happened. Right?

Right?

The Texan girl's heart felt like it was still halted in mid-beat. She was not sure it could ever be restarted.

"Oh, hey!" the nurse smiled at her, suddenly noticing Claire's presence. "Didn't know Peter had company. Visiting hours are over, you know?"

Claire didn't utter a word. She was sure she would stutter like a loony if she tried.

"You alright, sweetie?" Claire vaguely knew the other girl, a buxom redhead. She'd seen her around before, Claire thought, but she was pretty new at the job and she still didn't know her name. Sandy, maybe? "You seem a bit pale."

The blonde thought she probably looked like a deer trapped by the headlights of an oncoming truck. Or a child caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Or...she ran out of similes.

"Alright!" Claire croaked, with a high-pitched voice. She coughed and grinned nervously. "Sorry, I er, I mean, I'm alright. You just surprised me."

"Yeah, sorry. I didn't expect anyone to be here, like I said. I came to change Peter's IV and catheter bag." She offered the plastic bags, one full, the other empty, as proof of her statement.

''_Peter'? Who the hell do you think you are to call him by his first name, you bitch? He's Mr. Petrelli to you!'_

Oh, dear God, she was losing it. For real. "I, yeah, sorry. I'm Claire. I'm, er..."

"Oh, his niece? Heard a lot about you!" the nurse – the nametag on her breast read 'Samantha' – chipped happily. She sounded like a squirrel. Claire already hated her. "I think it's great what you do. Your uncle must be very special for you to come as often as I've been told."

Yeah, right. Uncle Peter. 'Cause he was her uncle. Her ten-years-older uncle. Her ten-years-older, vegetative uncle. Who she had only met a couple of times and for a few hours, before he became as unresponsive as a pet rock.

"Peter saved my life once," she simply said. Claire moved to retrieve the shaving utilities and took them back into the bathroom without waiting for a comeback.

'_My__ uncle. Only met him a couple of times. For a few hours.' _

And yet, in those sparse moments, Peter Petrelli had been the man who had given his life to save hers. Who had made her feel like she belonged somewhere when she had been the most lost. Who had given her hope when the entire world seemed about to crumble. Who had taught her to stand up and fight when all she wanted – when all everybody else wanted - was for her to run away and hide.

Claire cleaned the razor and the basin under the tap and threw the towel into the dirty linen basket. She avoided her reflection in the mirror all the time.

When she came out, Samantha was already changing the IV. Claire didn't want to stay around to watch her doing the same with the catheter bag, not because it would gross her out – it was hard to be grossed out by anything after you have woken up on a morgue table with your chest cut open – but because she thought Peter wouldn't have liked her to be there for that. He was too shy.

"Sorry to stay around so long," she apologized to the nurse. "I lost track of time."

"Understandable, dear. Who wouldn't with such a gorgeous company?" she pinched Peter's cheek like he was five years old.

Claire seriously considered asking Niki to release Jessica and give her this woman's name and address. "I'd better go," she said instead, getting her backpack from the bed. Before going out of the room, she quickly went back to Peter's side and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "I'll be back tomorrow, I promise."

"Goodbye, Claire!"

The former cheerleader ran out of the room without answering.

On her way out, her bag bouncing on her back at the rhythm of her fast steps, Claire couldn't escape the large mirror in the hallway and her own reflection staring back at her.

Claire saw a scared teenager. A stupid little girl with an insane and inappropriate hero-worship crush and maybe now a reverse Florence Nightingale complex to boot.

God, she was screwed up.

She ran all the way out, not even stopping to say goodbye to Martha. Got into her car and drove away as fast as the Rabbit's tiny engine and the little common sense she had left allowed her.

It wasn't until she was on the motorway heading back to Queens that Claire Bennet realized she was crying.

---O---

_The boy in white sits down on the sand, at the black man's side. His gaze is lost upon the horizon. He wonders what it __is like on the other side, if there is another side at all. _

"_Are they biting?" he asks casually. _

_Charles Deveaux shakes his head, looking in the same direction. "Nah. Chances are there aren't any fish out in that water, anyway."_

"_Then why are you bothering?" _

_The older man now looks at him, smiling knowingly. "Because that is what hope is all about, Peter. Believing that what might seem impossible, can actually happen."_

_Peter. Right, his name was Peter once. Peter Petrelli._

_It doesn't mean much to the boy in white right now. _

_He continues looking at the sea. It is calm. He likes it like that. Without complications. Life has too many of those. _

"_So," Charles sighs. _

"_So?"_

"_So, Peter. I'm dead. What do you want to ask to someone like me?"_

_Peter considers it for a few seconds of silence. He ponders the fact that his companion is deceased. Is there anything at all that he wants to actually ask? Anything he wants to know? He is not really sure. Knowledge is power, somebody who he knew - had once known - used to say. He just doesn't remember who. He doesn't want to remember who. _

"_Are you real?" he finally asks._

_The older man ponders the question. "Is any part of this real at all? This place, you, me... what if it wasn't real, any of it?"_

_Peter knows the answer to that. It's just that all of a sudden he becomes very afraid of it. "I'm too tired for riddles."_

"_You are tired, that much is true. You wouldn't be here if you weren't. But what are you tired of, Peter? Of walking through that endless desert? I don't think so. I think you were already tired when you came here. I think you came here, __**because**__ you were tired."_

"_I like this place, real or not," the boy in white hugs his knees, burying his feet in the wet sand of the beach. "I don't want to ever leave."_

_Charles Deveaux chuckles. "I don't believe you."_

_Peter shrugs. "You're dead, what do you know?"_

"_I know that there have to be reasons for leaving this place. And that those reasons have to outweigh the ones that brought you here. You just have to remember them. Do you remember, Peter?"_

_The boy raises his eyes to the sun. The goldenness of it. _

_Somebody golden. _

"_No." But he is just being stubborn, and he knows it. _

"_Ah," Charles laughs again, good-naturedly. "The absolute refusal to see what is right in front of one's eyes. That innermost Petrelli trait."_

_Peter refuses to answer that, to bite that bait. He refuses to remember. _

"_I don't understand what can you possibly like about this place," the older man sighs, going back the previous topic of conversation. "It's so... barren. There's no life here, Peter. There is nothing worth living for."_

"_We're here."_

"_Yes, but I'm dead. And you, Peter?"_

_He considers it. "I wish I was too."_

_Charles sighs again. "Are you truly that desperate to be reunited with my daughter?"_

'_**Simone.'**__ The boy in white simply can't help it; the memory of that dark-skinned, art-loving beauty suddenly blasts into his consciousness. _

_Kissing her in the rain. Cradling her dead body after Isaac's stray bullet had ended her life._

_He doesn't say a word. He can't bring himself to feel the pain associated to the memories. The older man smiles sadly. "I thought so."_

_Charles and Peter continue looking out over the ocean. The waves crash softly on the beach, bringing more white surf to their feet. _

---O---

_To be continued…_


	3. Chapter Two: Field Work

**Chapter Two****: Field Work**

_One more murder in this town,__  
Don't mean a thing, just lock your doors  
And drive around.  
One more murder in this town,  
Don't worry, the rain will  
Wash the chalk marks from the ground._

"_One more murder," Better Than Ezra_

**Racine, Wisconsin. May, 2009**

Noah Bennet had a lot of things to atone for in his life. A lot of things he had done wrong, even though he'd always thought they were for the greater good.

He had lied, stolen and cheated. He had killed and made innocents suffer. He had manipulated and betrayed those he loved and who loved him. All for the greater good. Always blindly believing that the ends justified the means; what was important was not the path you walked, but the destination you were trying to reach.

Amazing how it had taken a little girl to show him that it's the road taken that makes the destination worthwhile.

Amazing how hindsight is 20/20.

The road to redemption is long. It's hard. And it's uphill all the way. It's merciless too, and testing. It dares you to give up at every step, tempts you with the ease of just pulling over to the side of the curb and resting. Burdens you with the weight of your guilt and conscience. It screams at you, _'it's okay if you quit, at least you tried!'_

But if life's a journey, it _is _the path you take that makes the journey worthwhile.

Bennet had learned that from his teenage daughter. That weakness and strength are not measured by how many times you trip and fall, but how many times you stand up and keep on walking.

And now he walked. Slowly sometimes, others running as fast as his legs would carry him. But he never dared to stop.

It was good that, at least, he didn't walk alone.

That morning, as he drove the rented sedan they had picked at the Chicago O'Hare airport terminal, Bennet considered his current companion in the long journey to inner peace and enlightenment.

Mohinder Suresh sat in the passenger's seat of the Nissan, busily going over his notes again as Bennet drove the car. The Indian professor hadn't physically changed much in the two-plus years he had known him. His life in the States and his current academic status hadn't done much to improve his taste in clothing either. Still the same perpetual five o'clock shadow and unruly jet-black hair. Still the same choice of floral shirts and faded jeans or chinos.

Bennet had tried to instill in him the reasoning that the people they met would take him more seriously if he dressed more like the Ph.D he was, instead of a New York cabbie.

The man from New Delhi usually just retorted that tweed itched.

On the other hand, when he looked into Mohinder's dark eyes, the former Primatech executive had no problems in seeing how much the professor had changed indeed.

There was still a weight on his shoulders, the one of a son trying to live up to the ideals of a father he had thought had failed, but it seemed lighter these days. Molly Walker could claim a lot of responsibility for that, but also the fight they were fighting every day.

A battle not fought with guns or bombs, but with science and microscopes. A fight not to overcome and conquer, but to understand and help. A fight for hope.

Mohinder was another man Bennet had used and abused like he was tool. Now he called him friend.

The shared road to Shangri-La had some strange turns indeed.

"Do you ever think about publishing your work?" Bennet asked, making small talk while they drove towards the suburban outskirts of Racine, 50 miles away from the Chicago international airport.

Mohinder gave him barely a glance before going back to his papers. It was always _his _work, as if he was the only one responsible for it and the man behind the horn-rimmed glasses was just an unimportant assistant. When the truth was that he wouldn't have advanced half as much as he had done during these last few years, if it hadn't been for his "unimportant assistant".

The Accelerated Evolution Project was officially an academic study that tried to trace a virtual roadmap of what human evolution might bring in the near future. The applications of said work – according to the official press reports – would help scientists in all fields of study to anticipate the twists and turns that extreme genetic variations might affect to humankind. The benefits in pharmacology and medicine advancement only would be endless and profitable.

Funded by Yamagoto Industries – a pet project of Kaito Nakamura himself - it was the consensus by those very few in the business circles that had even heard of the project, that it was little more than some theoretical nonsense that would amount to nothing more than some science fiction-y press release, and a possible tax write-off. The Wall Street Journal had published a rather poignant, yet small, article about how big companies would do better investing their money in more realistic investigation programs instead of wasting it in pointless pseudo-science that would go nowhere. Why try to figure out what might be a problem in the distant future when there were already so many diseases today which still had no cure?

They had no idea.

Mohinder and Bennet looked for special people all around the globe. Evolved humans whose names were produced by the constantly-running computer program created by the late Dr. Chandra Suresh. A coded program whose inner workings, by the way, they still hadn't been able to figure out.

"Look how much something like that helped my father," Mohinder finally said, not without a small dose of bitterness. "The day I want to be branded a fool that way, I'll simply dress up as a clown instead."

Bennet darted a look at his shirt. It was white with pink flowers today. "I'll pass on any commentary about that. But seriously, your father didn't have a tenth of all the data you've collected during the last two years. He wrote a book about theories, whereas you have facts."

"Facts? Oh yes, I can really see the editors of the academic journals agreeing with that description. Nobel Prize, here we come," Mohinder chuckled. "You know, for being a man so used to keeping secrets, you seem awfully interested in bringing everything into the public light nowadays."

The man with the horn-rimmed glasses shrugged. "It's _going_ to become public knowledge, and sooner rather than later. Remember how it was at the beginning? We were lucky if the program added one name to the list every month. Now it's one every week. Sometimes two."

"Yes. It's definitely accelerating," the Indian professor conceded. "But there's still _so much_ we don't know, Noah. This is a phenomenon of which we're only starting to glimpse the consequences. We don't know the reasons, we can't see any pattern. There's so much we _don't_ know, it eclipses what we actually _do _know. And we don't know Joe."

"Jack," the other man corrected.

The genie was definitely out of the bottle now, Bennet could feel it. Mohinder would go into at least a fifteen-minute tirade about his investigations, but he didn't mind. Listening the professor's rambles beat the local radio stations any time of day.

Suresh didn't disappoint, either. His accented voice grew in intensity and passion about the subject. "For example, we know that the genes containing the DNA mutation that endow special powers are present at birth. You're either an evolved human or you're not, you don't _become _one. But if it's like that, what makes them go active? And why aren't they active right from the start? We've met people who manifested their condition during adulthood; like Matt Parkman, he didn't have a clue about his telepathy until he was well in his thirties. But others like Molly and Micah have been conscious of their abilities since early childhood. Now, Micah of course is second-generation, both his parents are evolved humans themselves, but Molly's biological parents were baseline-"

"Baseline?" Bennet arched his brow.

The man from New Delhi grinned sheepishly. "Well, I had to define regular non-empowered humans somehow, and felt that labeling us '_normal_' would somehow brand them '_abnormal_'. I refuse to give our daughters a label with such negative connotations."

"Anyway," Mohinder continued excitedly, "there has to be a factor that activates the powers, but what is it? It is biological, environmental, emotional...a combination of any of those? Something completely different? Ah, it's so frustrating! It's like we have only pieces of a giant puzzle, and we have no idea what kind of complete picture they form."

Bennet understood the other man's frustration with the subject. For as long as he had worked for Primatech – in a middle-management position, as Parkman had so accurately described it once – he had only been revealed glimpses of all that his bosses knew. He had always been briefed on a regular _need-to-know_ basis. As Mohinder had said, he had only been shown small pieces of a much larger puzzle, too few and too far away from each other.

Like Kaito Nakamura himself. The man knew – KNEW with capital letters – more than he had ever let on. He had been one of heads of the Primatech Hydra at one point. Hell - he had been the man who, back in 1990, had put Claire into Noah's arms to raise her as his own child!

The reasons behind the Japanese mogul's actions were nothing but a mystery themselves. Had he simply left Claire in his care with the intention to retrieve her when she _'manifested'_, as the Japanese man had assured him would happen? Bennet couldn't help but to think – given all that had happened afterwards – that Nakamura-san had had ulterior motives. But what were they?

Then, if he really wanted Mohinder's research to succeed, why did Hiro's father refuse to meet them face to face and reveal all he knew about the phenomenon? Why did he keep his silence about Linderman, the Petrellis, Deveaux and himself?

Was Nakamura really furthering their research, or just keeping them in the dark?

All this unsettled the former man in black – well, he had never actually dressed in black – and did nothing to ease his mind and clear his conscience.

If it had been up to him, to be honest, Bennet would have been perfectly happy throwing everything aside and moving with his family to some remote and anonymous place where they could spend their lives in blissful ignorance after the night of the exploding man.

But he knew such an option simply was not possible. With Linderman, Thompson and Deveaux dead, Angela Petrelli vanished and Nakamura playing his own game – whatever it was – Primatech had fallen apart. By the time he had made it back to Odessa, the back rooms in the paper factory were all empty. The scientists and technicians gone. The security personnel vanished.

Bennet had phoned numbers, tried to get in contact with key figures. He only got disconnected lines and silence as answers.

The front business was still running, its façade setup so good that those employees actually believed themselves members of a successful but regular paper manufacturing business. They had even kept his position as sales director, if he'd wanted it.

But of course, as tempting at it had been to turn his fake persona into the real one, it was something Bennet couldn't allow to happen. That the people who'd worked for the Company weren't there any longer didn't mean they didn't exist anymore. They were still somewhere, possessing enough knowledge to make them dangerous and extremely valuable at the same time.

It was only a matter of time before somebody would pick up that knowledge and try to do something with it. And the end result would invariably be that innocent people would suffer because of it. People like Claire.

The only way to protect his daughter and many others like her was to beat them to it. To find answers where there were only questions. To be ready for when the time would come. Nakamura's offer to fund Mohinder's research had been godsend in that sense, and Bennet had decided to take the chance. Maybe he was once again allying himself with the Devil, but for Claire, her would gladly run that risk.

And, along the way and much to his own surprise, the man behind the horn-rimmed glasses had found he was not alone. And that, as much as for his daughter and family, he was doing this for himself.

For redemption.

"What do we know about this guy?" Bennet asked all of a sudden, realizing that the Indian professor had fallen into a sullen silence. This was not strange to him, either. Mohinder could become quite brooding when the frustration of the work came afloat, and, although he had memorized Robert O'Connor's file, he wanted to shake him out of it.

Mohinder went back to his notes and read over, "Robert Donovan O'Connor, 33 years old from Racine, Wisconsin. Married to Carol O'Connor, née Foster for the last five years. No children. Works as an accountant in a factory that produces home rubbish compactors."

Bennet nodded. "Fitting. Rubbish compactors were invented in Racine."

"Fascinating," the professor said, in a tone that clearly indicated he didn't think it was. "He seems to be your average Jack."

"Joe," the older man corrected him off-handedly. Mohinder's English still slipped here and there.

"Whatever. Any other interior knowledge you want to share at this point?"

"Well, Racine is also famous for being home to the largest settling of Danes in North America outside of Greenland. I think I'll get Sandra some Danish cookies when we finish." He frowned, considering something else. "I wonder if they'll sell Danish bears too. Is there such a thing as a Danish teddy bear?"

"I don't know. One with a blue dress, a white hat, wooden shoes and holding a tulip? Don't you think Claire is a bit too old for bears, anyway?"

At this, Bennet couldn't help but to chuckle. "It's a tradition. You should start one with Molly too, it would strengthen your relationship. Believe me, you need to cement it before the day comes."

Mohinder frowned, not understanding. "The day?"

"The day, Mohinder!" the older man laughed out loud. "Believe me, it'll come whether you want it to or not. She'll be going through puberty, hormones and rebellion raging inside her. She'll want to do something you consider inappropriate, like going to a party with boys you don't think she should hang around. It'll start off slow, but then build up into a full-fledged fight. She'll say, '_But why can't I go?_'You'll say something like, '_Because I say so, and that's final!'_ And then she'll say, _'What do you care? You're not my real father!'_"

Bennet smiled softly at the professor's horrified expression. "Don't worry; she won't mean it, but she'll say it anyway. And your heart will break, my friend. And that day, or a couple of days afterwards, you'll go back to your silly tradition, like bringing her a teddy bear from wherever you've gone to that week. And she'll smile at you, kiss your cheek and tell you what a great daddy you are and how much she loves you. And your heart will mend. Till the next time."

Mohinder contemplated this future. "Sounds terrible."

"No, it's called _'being a father'_. Take advantage of my experience."

The man from New Delhi hoped that didn't mean he would have to wipe his adopted daughter's memories every now and then. Although he conceded such an ability would be quite handy, in such fights were ever to take place. He didn't say anything, however.

Frowning, Mohinder suddenly asked, "Where do you find all that stupid trivia for wherever place we visit, anyway?"

"The Internet. Wikipedia," Bennet said, deadpan. "A truly wonderful tool."

Mohinder just rolled his eyes. He opened his mouth, but then quickly shut it again, realizing it wasn't a subject he wanted to pursue any longer.

The former Primatech man liked this kind of banter with the Indian professor. It reminded Bennet of his old partner Claude, and a time when he'd actually believed that what he was doing was something good and great. Before black and white became all too familiar shades of grey. And it was a refreshing change from the Haitian. The pseudo-mute man had been talented and a great asset, but to say he hadn't been a witty conversationalist would be like the greatest understatement ever.

Chatting amicably like that, they kept on driving with the help of the Nissan's GPS navigator until they arrived at the suburban neighbourhood where Robert and Carol O'Connor had their house. As soon as they arrived at the two-way, 20mph-only street, both felt deadly silent at once.

Police cruisers and ambulances were never a good sign, especially in such a peaceful residential neighbourhood as this one seemed to be. It even reminded Noah of the street where his old home in Odessa used to be. Before Ted Sprague had reduced it to radioactive ashes, of course.

Bennet parked the car by the curb. He heard Mohinder saying, as both of them stared intently at the cops and paramedics coming in and out of the house, "Please, tell me we got the wrong street. Tell me this is not Nolan Terrace."

The mind behind the horn-rimmed glasses had read the placard at the entrance of the street. "If I did, I'd lie."

"Tell me then that that's not number 36."

His spectacled eyes moved to look at the professor. "It is number 36."

Mohinder also looked away from the obvious crime scene. "Shit."

Shit, indeed.

Bennet killed the engine of the rented car and both men unbuckled their seat belts to step outside. Uniformed officers had surrounded the property with black and yellow tape and a couple of them stood guard to keep the rubberneckers from getting too close. The duo's small hope that the situation wasn't as serious as it looked like vanished completely, when they spotted the paramedics getting in their ambulance and drive it away empty, revealing the coroner's van.

"You think he lost control?" Mohinder asked in a whisper.

Sadly, it wouldn't be the first time that they had seen something like that happening. An evolved human with powers too strong or unstable to control, harming himself or others by accident or on purpose. It was exactly what drove them on this quest. To help or stop the Ted Sprague's of the world before it was too late.

"Maybe," Bennet nodded. "Then again, maybe not."

The former Company employee looked around until he spotted what he was looking for. The O'Connors' home was on one of the corners of the street, and right across the road there was a media van parked, the lettering on the side indicating it belonged to a local TV station. They had probably just finished taping a news segment, for the one-man crew was already collecting the utilities and storing them in the back. A woman in her early thirties, dressed in a tailored, not overly revealing outfit was leaned against the passenger's door, checking her make up on the rear view mirror.

"You take the reporter, I'll talk to the cameraman," Noah told the professor.

"Why?" Mohinder groaned. "American women scare me."

"American women _like _you. That's why." It had to be the accent.

They could have gone and asked the cops straightaway, but law enforcement tended to keep their lips shut at the beginning of a investigation. There was no bigger gossiper than a man with a badge and no one else loved more to appear on camera, but they were always terrified of saying something that made them look like fools. So they always gave non-committal answers and the straight official story. At least, until the rumors would spread and they could be quoted as an _'inside source'_.

Bennet didn't believe Mohinder would have much of a chance of actually getting anything better from the news reporter – those types were always afraid of anybody else stealing a good story – but he betted the professor could distract her with his exotic looks long enough for him to extract some valuable information from the cameraman. Those people, yes, those people _loved _to talk.

"Hey, how's it going?" he greeted the man, carefully standing at the other side of the van so the view of him was blocked to the woman in front. The twenty-something guy – pierced ear, spiky hair, Grateful Dead T-shirt – frowned at him.

The former Primatech employee scanned him from head to toe with a single look, noticed the tiny rainbow bow pinned to his shirt's left breast and sneakily, with his hands on his pockets, let his wedding ring slide off his finger.

Bennet just put on his best salesman smile and motioned for the other man's camera equipment with his head as he crossed his arms over his chest, his thumb rubbing on space of his finger left empty by his wedding ring. "That a Nikon 5600?"

"5700, actually," the young man grinned proudly. "Best damn camera in the business. Can I help you with something, dude?"

"Oh, just wondering if you knew what was going on. Me and my partner just arrived, we're looking to buy a house in the neighbourhood, but we saw all this and thought we might be looking in the wrong place, you know?"

The cameraman leaned slightly to the side to have a look at Mohinder, who now was chatting with the woman. He smiled as he looked back at Bennet. "I see this isn't the only neighbourhood you're new around."

The older man drew a shy – if fake – smile. "Is it that obvious?"

The cameraman shrugged. "Your partner...well, you only need to see how uneasy he is acting around a sex predator like Sharon the Megabitch to know he bats for the other team. And no hetero would wear a shirt like that. But you? That suit, those glasses... dude, you're even missing your wedding band."

Bennet acted like he was surprised, like the rubbing motion of his thumb on his empty ring finger was not something he was doing on purpose to call for the younger man's attention. "You have good powers of observation, my friend."

Sylar might have known _how_ people ticked, but Noah Bennet knew _what_ made them tick. And how to manipulate them so they would tick in the way he wanted them to. That was his talent, and even if it wasn't a product of evolved genetics, it was just as useful nonetheless.

The young cameraman nodded in understanding. In just a few exchanged words, the man with the horn-rimmed glasses had made him think he was a kindred spirit. He said, "So, looking for your first place together?"

Bennet nodded sheepishly. "Yeah, I...er...I'm still a bit in between worlds, if you catch my drift. We want something that's ours, but no so different than what I had before." He waved his now ring-less hand as an explanation.

"Well, I'm sorry to squash your hopes then, dude, but you're looking in the wrong place here, at least right now. Most people living around here, they're salt of the earth types and all that. But the guy in that house – that one that the cops are getting out in a black bag right now – just blew his brains out. Did his missus first, too. Apparently, he was a closeted kiddy diddler or something."

The older man put on a horrified face – not faked, actually, as he had no reason to believe what the cameraman was saying was nothing but the truth. "Oh, that's horrible."

"Tell me about it. I used to date one of the guys in blue over there, he told me the inside crap on the cops just discovered. People around here aren't evil, like I said, but right now they're going to look at anyone out of the ordinary as if we were all child-molesting monsters."

Bennet was sympathetic to the man's underlying bitterness. Sexual orientation, race, religion or having a genetic profile that gave you superpowers, what did it really matter? Humans were gregarious mammals, and anything that stuck out of the ordinary was always frowned upon. Sometimes persecuted. Sometimes hunted down.

He sometimes felt that for a long part of his life he had been wearing an invisible white robe with a pointed hat. He only hoped to have left the burning cross well behind him.

Mohinder came closer, a bewildered expression in his dark eyes and a little business card in his hand. "That woman just gave me her card and asked me to call her sometime. Why would she do that?"

The good professor really needed to stop spending so much time behind a microscope and start going out more, in Noah's opinion. Bennet smiled at him and wrapped an arm around his waist. Mohinder looked at him as if he had grown a tentacle on his forehead.

"You're so deliciously naïve, my dear." Before the man from New Delhi could say anything and ruin the charade, he offered his other hand for the young cameraman to shake it. "It's been a pleasure, thank you so very much for your help."

"The pleasure was mine," the other man grinned back. He gave Mohinder a look over. "Darn, it's just like they say: the good ones are all already taken or heteros."

With a wave of his hand, the cameraman walked past and into the van, driving away a few seconds later. Perplexed, Mohinder looked at his so-called assistant. "Now I have two questions. A, do I really want to know what that was all about? And B, why is your arm still around my waist?"

Sighing, Bennet released him and quickly retrieved his wedding ring from his pocket. He lost no time in placing back where it belonged, and felt somehow comforted by the sensation of the metal band against his skin. "Seems that our good friend Bob O'Connor took his own life after killing his loving wife. Apparently, he was a pedophile ashamed of his condition."

"As he should be," the Indian professor snorted, amazed that Bennet was so deep in thought. He was sorry about the woman, but he couldn't bring himself to feel any sympathy for a child molester. He was also disappointed to lose a subject of study, but he had long ago accepted that Mother Nature was a capricious and blind goddess. She gave her gifts without considering who might get them, or how they would use them.

If it was otherwise, Sylar would have always remained Gabriel Gray, son of a watchmaker.

But Mohinder had also come to respect Bennet's insight and instinct over the years, so it was without a double intention that he asked, "What do you want to do now?"

The former Primatech man was biting the interior of his cheek as he pondered their possibilities. After a few seconds, he said. "Let's talk to the cops."

He started walking forward with firm decisiveness, not waiting for the professor to answer, and Mohinder had to trot for a little while to catch up with him. "What do you want me to do?"

"Stay behind me. Don't say a word. If you have to, speak in Punjabi."

The Indian frowned. "But you don't speak Punjabi, do you?"

"That's not the point." They arrived at the limit around the O'Connors' property set by the police tape and Bennet simply lifted it up, his whole body adopting the demeanour of somebody used to giving orders and expecting them to be obeyed.

A uniformed patrolman quickly walked up to them, lifting a hand in an unmistakable stopping gesture. "I'm sorry, sir, but this is a crime scene. You're not allowed to be here-"

As if by magic, Bennet produced a business card from the interior of his jacket and offered it to the policeman. "Homeland Security, officer. Who's in charge here?"

"Uh, Detective Robinson, sir," the cop was shocked at the older man's claim, but was well trained. "Do you have some kind of photo ID?"

Bennet politely smiled at him, but didn't even bother to answer to his request. "Please tell Detective Robinson that we'd like to speak with him for a moment."

"But-"

"Now."

There was nothing in that word that wasn't an order, and the policeman stared at the business card for a second, then at the man with the horn-rimmed glasses and then at the business card again. Finally, he nodded, "Wait here, please."

When the young police officer quickly trotted away, Mohinder leaned closer to his friend and whispered, "You know that impersonating a Federal agent is a criminal offense, right?"

"So is trespassing past one of those," Noah said, pointing over his shoulder at the police tape. "And I don't see you standing on the other side."

Any retort that might have come from the professor was silenced when the patrolman returned, tagging along a plainclothes detective in his fifties and who wore a pissed-off expression on his face. He carried Bennet's business card in his hand, and was crumpling it between his fingers.

"What kind of stupid joke is this?" he barked angrily at them. "Who the hell are you people? And don't give me any of this _'Homeland Security' _crap unless you show me some kind of badge right now!"

"I'm not carrying a badge because I'm not a field agent," Bennet explained calmly. Offering his hand to the detective, he introduced himself. "Detective Robinson, I presume. I'm Erik Lensherr, and I work for the personnel office at the Homeland Security - Washington department. This is Amahl Farouk, he's a civilian observer from the newly elected Iraqi government. He works for their Ministry of Finance."

Robinson, the patrolman – and Mohinder himself too – looked at the spectacled man with slack-jawed expressions. Luckily, the Indian was quick enough to recover before the cops noticed his own shock. He said something quickly in his native tongue to both men – '_good morning'_ to the detective and '_I'm gonna spend the rest of my life in jail'_ to the uniformed officer – and shook their hands.

"What the he- uh, I mean, what can I do for you, Mr. er... Lensherr?" the detective was nothing sort of bewildered at having two people like this show up at his crime scene.

"Detective Robinson, we've received information that Mr. Robert O'Connor has committed suicide here in his own home after murdering his wife, and that allegedly he is guilty of some... let's say, illegal and highly reprehensible behaviour. Is this correct?" Bennet spoke in a calm but rapid-fire voice, doing his best to keep the policemen out of the control of the situation.

"Well, yeah, but...hey, how did you know that? The department hasn't made any official statement yet-" Robinson demanded.

"Detective, please," Bennet smiled with the same expression a patient teacher would have for an especially slow pupil. "We're the Federal government, we have our sources. Anyway, the situation is this. I understand that Mr. O'Connor was an accountant for a local factory specialized in waste processing devices, is that right?"

"Yes, but-"

"You see, this company is about to get a very important contract with the Department of Defense, to provide the U.S. Army with portable waste processors for their operations in the Middle East. All the personnel in the factory have had to go through a security check out in order for them to be even considered for the job. We are _deeply _disturbed that somebody with such an unappealing background as Mr. O'Connor might have slipped though our screening process."

"Well, yeah, I can see that, but still-"

Bennet continued bombarding the detective with his machine-gun speech, not giving him time to process the information and realize what a huge lot of crap he was being fed. "This is potentially a source of deep embarrassment for us, Detective. That's why Homeland Security has sent me, and not the Army. We need to be as discreet as possible about this, if you understand my meaning. I know everyone in Washington would be deeply grateful for your cooperation in such a delicate matter as this one."

Robinson blinked, overloaded. "Well, of course. Anything for our boys over there..."

"What's he doing here, then?" the patrolman suddenly asked, pointing at Mohinder.

"Don't be stupid, Harris," the detective frowned before Bennet could offer another implausible yet convincing answer. "The man's an observer from a foreign government, he's...observing. Why don't you go to do something useful, like direct traffic or something?"

"Can we have access to the crime scene?" Bennet requested politely, as the uniform went away shaking his head. "I promise we won't get in your way. Really, I just want to fill out a couple of forms and then file the report on this disgraceful incident."

The detective nodded and he led them into the two-story house. As they walked, Mohinder whispered in Punjabi, "_'I just aged ten years in one second.'_"

He was unaware if Bennet actually understood him, as the man with horn-rimmed glasses just smiled enigmatically back at him.

A few minutes later, Mohinder was sure that if he looked up the definition of _'dichotomy' _in a dictionary, he would find a picture of the O'Connors' house. It was as if somebody had gotten the best and the worst things in the world and slapped them together into a gruesome collage.

Cops and forensic experts roamed the tiny house, compiling evidence and taking pictures with blinding flashes. Fibres, traces and DNA, dusting for fingerprints and turning every cushion, opening every drawer and every locker.

"Here is where we found his body," Robinson said, taking them into Bob O'Connor's tiny office.

The chair were he had been sitting when the .38 bullet ended his life was empty, spinning slowly as if moved by an invisible force. A technician was dismantling the computer and bagging it so it could be taken to the police lab. Bob's blood and brains still splattered the wall and a collection of family pictures he had on his desk.

Mohinder took a second to examine them, while Bennet apparently only gave them a passing glance. Their wedding picture, Carol's white dress now sprinkled in crimson red. A picnic. An anniversary dinner. Holidays on the beach...

There were at least ten and, in most of them – save the wedding one and the one in the dinner – the couple was in the company of a dog. A large Saint Bernard. There was even a picture of the dog on his own, and the professor noticed a nametag around its thick hairy neck. It said 'Timmy'.

Raising his eyes to the window behind the desk, Mohinder saw the O'Connors' backyard. There was Timmy's doghouse, prim and well built. Empty. He wondered what would become now of the animal.

The drawers in the desk were open. Most of them were full of the usual stationery, but in one of the lower ones, the professor noticed several decks of cards. All opened. All of different brands. He remembered having seen the upturned cards on the living room's coffee table on his way in and frowned.

On the desk, O'Connor's suicide note waited for somebody to put it in an evidence bag. Mohinder quickly read it over. He quickly wished he hadn't

Robinson toured them around the house, chatting as aimlessly as he seemed to be walking. In general the police detective just used the time to complain about the world today and how modern technology in general and the Internet in particular was the source of all evil. Mohinder said nothing, and Bennet seemed to be only answering in automatic mode, generally agreeing with the cop but without really saying anything at all.

In the kitchen, the man with the horn-rimmed glasses halted for a moment, to look at the fridge's door for a second before resuming his tour behind Robinson. Mohinder imitated him, curious about what could have called his attention. The only thing he saw was a calendar, stuck to the door with a magnet. Tomorrow's date was circled in red, and somebody had written a little note. _'Pick Timmy up from vet'. _There was a smiley face drawn next to it.

Back to the living room, they arrived in time to witness a couple of coroners carrying a black body bag in a litter from the upstairs level. They stood aside as they passed by, and Robinson commented with little sympathy, "The wife. She should have known what was going on with the husband, if you ask me. I can't do a damn thing without mine knowing it even before I do, it's like she can read my mind or something. This one probably just chose to ignore it."

'_She got what she deserved,'_ the meaning wasn't lost on Mohinder. He felt bile rising to his mouth.

They went upstairs next. The bedroom, Carol's blood on the wall and more bile stinging Mohinder's throat. Main bathroom, of no consequence. A second room, with no furniture but with a lot of rubber toys scattered on the floor, a sleeping litter and food and water bowls.

"How long had the O'Connors been living here?" Bennet asked all of a sudden, looking inside the room as if it held the secret of life, the universe and beyond.

"Five years," the detective answered with a frown. "Ever since they got married."

The spectacled man nodded and released a _'hmmm'_ under his breath, but didn't add anything more until he finally said. "I think that'll be all, Detective Robinson. On behalf of Homeland Security and the Federal government I want to thank you for your help. I'll be sure to mention it in my report."

"Always a pleasure to collaborate with you guys," the detective accepted the offered hand.

"Please, don't let us keep you any longer. We know the way out," Bennet smiled, losing no time in turning around and making for the closest exit, with Mohinder tagging along.

It wasn't until they were out of the house and well on their way back to the rented car that the professor dared to speak. "Next time you decide to pull something like that, tell me beforehand and I'll wait in the car."

Bennet only grinned.

Inside the Nissan, seat belts on and engine running, Mohinder added, "I think he was a precognitive."

"Because of the cards?" Not that the man with the glasses disagreed, but he felt like playing Devil's advocate. "He might just have liked playing solitaire."

"But he had a lot of decks in one drawer. All opened, but barely used. I think he was using them to test his abilities, he wanted to be sure that whatever was happening was in him and not in the cards. That it wasn't coincidence or sheer luck or something."

Bennet nodded. "Your point being?"

A shrug. "Maybe he saw something in his future, something he didn't like. Something he didn't want to do and he...flipped out."

Another nod from the former Company man. It sounded logical. Seeing the future was something harder to go through than one would normally believe. Seeing things that were going to happen and finding oneself unable to stop them from happening. It could drive a man crazy.

Isaac Mendez came to his mind. It twisted his insides.

Mohinder insisted, "If Robert O'Connor was an Internet pedophile and felt ashamed about his compulsion, maybe he saw himself going further, doing something to a child he didn't want to do, but knew he could not stop himself from doing. Maybe he just wanted to do the right thing for once and put an end to it all before that actually happened."

"Nice theory," Bennet agreed. "Shame it's all a load of bullshit."

The professor frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, he didn't kill himself or his wife. And I doubt he was ever a pedophile either. It's all a set-up." There was so much certainty in the older man's voice that the professor didn't dare to argue. He just let his friend elaborate. "They didn't pick up on the dog."

"The dog? Timmy?"

"People who kill their loved ones before committing suicide don't do it in the heat of the moment, unless they commit suicide _because_ they killed their families. If Bob O'Connor had accidentally murdered his wife or done it as a crime of passion, _and then _taken his life out of regret, I could buy the scenario. But the suicide note belies that possibility. It was very precise: he regretted his compulsion, he killed himself to stop it, killed his wife for her not to go through the shame."

"I'm not sure I'm following you here…"

Bennet sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. He felt really tired, all of a sudden. "Those who do what O'Connor's supposedly done, they take their time to plan it. They...indulge...in the planning, because it offers them comfort, makes them think they're actually _doing something _to change what makes them feel so...ill. And yet, Bob O'Connor didn't make any plans regarding his dog. They were supposed to pick him up from the vet tomorrow, and yet he killed himself and his wife only hours before doing so. He didn't even mention him in his note. Nothing to his parents saying _'take care of the dog' _or anything like that."

Now it was time for Mohinder to look for holes in the other man's theory. It was a verbal game-play they were used to, and it worked smoothly. Much to his surprise, they made a damn good team. "Maybe he didn't like the dog?"

"You saw the pictures, you saw the room. They'd been living for five years in a small house and they kept a whole room empty for him to play in. They called him 'Timmy', not 'Fido' or 'Samson'. Timmy is a kid's name, Mohinder. That dog was the substitute for the child they couldn't afford to have. They _cared _about him. Trust me, if Bob O'Connor had decided to kill himself and his wife, he would have first collected the animal from the vet clinic and then killed him too."

The professor considered carefully the other man's apparently off-handed petition.

_Trust me. _

For anybody else, those two words would have gotten lost in the conversation. For them two, they held a special significance. Because there had been a time, not so long ago, when Mohinder Suresh would have done anything but trust the man who sat at his side in the rented car.

Mohinder could still remember clearly those first weeks after the night of the exploding man. He had been lost, not really knowing to do with his life. With his father avenged, returning to India seemed the logical course of action. He had a life there, maybe even a future in private pharmacology with his ex-fiancée, and nothing to keep him in the States.

Nothing but Molly Walker, that is.

But there was no way Social Services would let him take care of the little girl. He was a foreigner, a single man without a stable job. And after he had dragged his feet about the departure for weeks, the day of going back home – if there was somewhere he could call that – finally arrived. Molly had been back to full health by then, the treatment distilled out of the antibodies in his own blood having beaten her exotic disease. There were no more excuses to hold him back, nothing that could save him but a last minute miracle.

But much to his own surprise, a miracle arrived in the form of Ando Masahashi.

There had been a knock on the door of his tiny apartment and he had been about to open it, thinking it would be Social Services coming to get Molly. His heart had been broken as the little girl yanked at his clothes, weeping as she tried to stop him from doing so, begging for him to let her stay with him.

He had been telling himself he was doing the right thing – and not believing a word of it – when he opened the door. And found Ando at the other side. With a sealed letter in his hands.

Mohinder would never forget the young Japanese office worker's words as he bowed formally and offered him the letter. "Mohinder-san, I bring you the words of Nakamura Kaito-sensei. Please, accept them with an open mind."

And indeed he had needed an open mind to read that letter, handwritten in English by the industrialist himself. A letter in which he detailed his plans to generously fund a research project that would look into the new species of humankind that was so secretly sprouting here and there around the globe. A letter that gave him a new future. For once, _his _future.

Suresh had read the five pages of the letter, each one of them cramped with the mogul's neat and careful scripture, on the very lintel of his apartment's door. Without even realizing he hadn't invited Ando to come in, holding the paper with one hand as he stilled a trembling Molly against him.

Mohinder had finished reading the last page when the woman from the Social Services appeared and asked for the little girl. The man from New Delhi had looked at her without really seeing her. He could never remember her face because his eyes had been full with joyous tears at the time. He had just let Ando come in and told the woman, "Molly's not going anywhere," before closing the door in her face.

One week later, the ultra-expensive attorneys working for Yamagoto Industries had sorted out all the paperwork. He had full resident rights for the United States and Molly's adoption was official.

One month after reading the letter, he was settling down in his new office at the NYU campus.

One month and a minute later, Noah Bennet was knocking on his door.

Why in God's name he hadn't also slammed the door in his spectacled face was something Mohinder knew he might never understand. This was the man who had threatened him, manipulated him, who was to a certain degree responsible for Eden's death, and who had once put a gun to his adopted daughter's head with the intention to kill her.

Why?

Maybe because he was tired of fighting the ghosts of the past and just wanted to look forward. Maybe because Bennet's offer of his experience and services actually was a good idea. Maybe because he saw something in his eyes, a sadness he had never seen before in the man.

Maybe because he wanted to give him the chance he had never given to his own father.

Maybe it had been all of the above. Maybe nothing like that.

He had given Bennet a job, but had told the man unequivocally, "Don't expect me to trust you. That'll never happen."

And yet...and yet, in the following two years they had gone though hell and back together. Had seen miracles and wonders. Had cried and laughed. Had saved some lives and lost others. Had risked their own. Had shared meals, cramped planes, uncountable rented cars and seedy motel rooms. Had seen the highest and lowest, the best and the worst of each other and come out of it all relatively sound and safe. Maybe with a little less sanity, but that was not entirely a bad thing in this confusing world they lived in.

How was he not going to end up trusting this man? How was he not going to call Noah Bennet _'friend'_?

Back to the present. To the bodies of Bob and Carol O'Connor lying in impersonal black bags and their names being dragged through the mud. To the notion that they had been murdered by a third party who had covered it up with a blanket of lies.

Questions popped up inside Mohinder's head like mushrooms after the rain. Were the murders related to the fact that O'Connor had been a precog, or were they just a coincidence? Who was behind them? Why?

"What do we do? Do we tell the police?" the professor asked.

"Tell them what? We have no evidence, it's only a theory."

"So is the shooter behind the grassy knoll," Mohinder arched his brow. "Doesn't make it any less true."

Bennet shook his head in denial, his eyes intent on the road. "Whoever did this, they were professionals. The child abuse angle was a masterstroke, the cops won't even bother looking beyond that. Because they won't want to."

"And the real killers go unpunished?"

The other man darted a look at his friend from behind his horn-rimmed glasses. "I didn't say that."

"So, I repeat: what do we do?"

"Now?" Bennet sighed. "Now I look for some Danish pastries for my wife, and maybe a bear for my daughter. I'm sure Lyle would like something too, but I still need to figure out what to get for him. And you...you should start thinking about what kind of present Molly would like."

It was a full minute of silence before Mohinder spoke again. "And tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow...tomorrow, we start asking questions."

---O---

_They sit in silence for a long while, but for the first time, Peter doesn't feel comfortable._

_He doesn't like this sensation. He'd rather go walk in the desert for a little more, maybe just some eons._

_He doesn't want the questions that start forming into his head. Doesn't want to feel the curiosity. Knows he won't like the answers. He is afraid of them. And of what they will bring. _

_And yet, he is the one that speaks first. He asks, "__**Are**__ you real then?"_

"_I though we had already settled that," Charles frowns, adjusting the fishing cane more to do something with his hands than for any other reason. _

"_No, I mean..." It's difficult to explain. He feels he doesn't have the vocabulary. "I mean, what are you? Are you the __**real **__Charles Deveaux, or just a product of my imagination?"_

_Because this world is of his creation, it's silly to deny it any longer. It's a product of his wounded, tired mind and soul. _

"_Why not a little bit of both?" the black man wonders. "Is it impossible for you to believe there's a part of me that was left behind in you? We were together for quite a while after your power was...activated, let us say. Some scientists believe in genetic memory, in basic impulses and traits passed from one generation to the next via a few coded genes in the DNA. You have this power, Peter, where your DNA constantly reconfigures into somebody else's in order to duplicate their powers. Haven't you ever wondered if that's the only thing of them that remain in you?"_

"_Then you're not really __**you**__, but my memory of you." Peter is a bit disappointed, although he can't understand exactly why. _

_Charles sighs and shakes his head. "You're looking for simple answers to very complicated questions, Peter. What is the soul? What is the meaning of life? I can't give those to you."_

"_I'm sorry," the younger man says abruptly, "about Simone."_

_The black man considers the boy in white for a few seconds, his dark eyes slits as Peter averts his stare. "No, you're not. You still don't remember the meaning of those words."_

"_But this is not about my daughter," Charles continues with another sigh. "This is about you, and understanding what you're doing here. And what it'll take to get you out."_

"_But I don't want to," Peter is adamant. "I can't. I...I shouldn't."_

_At this, Charles can't help but to arch his brow under his straw hat. "Why do you think that?"_

"_Because..." His insides twist, his heads starts pounding with a dull pain and for the first time he is conscious of the beating of his heart. It's speeding up, becoming a staccato. "Because..." He doesn't want to remember. He doesn't want to remember. He doesn't want to..._

_But Peter Petrelli can't help it._

"_Because everyone I love dies because of me."_

_And then, finally, the memories rush into his brain like a tidal wave. _

_A tsunami of emotion that shatters him, drives a knife made of ice through his heart and brings bitter tears to his eyes. His breath comes in gasps, his stomach heaves and, as he tries to stand up, his knees fail and he falls down to the wet sand. _

_Images rush in front of his eyes, too fast to grasp them. His father's coffin descending into the ground. Simone, standing in Isaac's loft with an expression of incredulity in her beautiful eyes as a crimson flower of blood grows on her chest. And Nathan... _

_Nathan flying up into the sky. Nathan giving his life for him, for them all. Nathan vanishing in a ring of fire over Manhattan._

_He has killed them all. With his foolishness. With his blindness. With his weakness._

_Peter Petrelli weeps, his body rocked by waves of sorrow. The landscape around him changes with his emotions. A harsh wind rises, whipping him with pin-like grains of sand. The ocean becomes furious, crashing on the shore with angry explosions of white surf. Dark clouds appear in the spotless blue sky, and the boy in white raises his tearful eyes to the sun._

_The sun keeps on shining. Even through the storm clouds. It gives light. It gives hope. _

_The goldenness of it. _

_Somebody golden. _

_All through his ordeal, Charles Deveaux doesn't move from his reclining chair. Doesn't try to comfort him. Peter needs this. Needs this pain in order to become human again. _

_Finally, the black man also looks up, at the dark clouds that dim the daylight. "There's a mighty big storm coming, Peter. It will be long, and powerful. Not everybody will make it though it. By the time it calms down, the world will be either destroyed by the fury of its wind and lightning, or washed clean by its rain."_

_Now he stands up and leans one hand on Peter's shoulder, who is still on his knees. "Peter, I love you like a son, you know that. I don't want you to be hurt or in pain, but the world needs you. It's time to stop running away from fate."_

"_What FATE!?" Peter yells, suddenly angry. "You told me it was my fate to save the world, and look what happened! Sylar beat me to a pulp and my brother had to give his life to save us all! And now you start all over again with the same bullshit!! Who will have to die next time when I fail? Who?"_

_Charles' eyes are hard as they look down at the younger man. He is not impressed by his burst of anger, nor softened by his tears. "I know you've lived all your life with the notion that you were the weakest link, but that excuse won't work anymore. Peter, you remember now what you can do. You know where your dreams can take you. And yes, it's a scary place, there's pain in there, and fear too. But there's also hope, and love and people who care about you. And if you don't overcome your grief, then those people are going to suffer, more than you can possibly imagine."_

_At last, the African-American leans down, to whisper in his ear. His tone is secretive, conspiratorial, "What's it going to be, Peter? Thunder and lightning, or rain?"_

_Peter Petrelli looks up. To the sun. It doesn't blind him, it never does. _

_It fights the clouds with its light. Brings him hope and warmth. A sense of destination. A reason to be._

_The goldenness of it. _

_Somebody golden._

_He whispers, "Claire…"_

_And the entire world shatters around him._

---O---

**Somewhere near Boulder, Colorado. The same time**

There were so many tubes coming in and out of the little boy that he didn't seem human any longer, but a fantastic creature out of the mind of a science-fiction novelist. A cyborg like only HR Giger or the Watchowski brothers could have conjured up.

And he was now more machine than human, to be honest. A machine breathed for him, another recycled his blood while another one fed him and yet another took care of his waste. He was connected to so many monitors and screens that there was not a single parameter of his so-called life that was not controlled, examined, gauged and immediately corrected if need was so.

The only thing that remained entire was his mind. And the doctors kept it constantly sedated to spare him the horror and the pain of his dying body.

But to Foster Caine, the boy with all the tubes was just his ten-year-old only son.

A kid that loved frogs and baseball, that rarely cried or threw tantrums, that always ran to hug him when he came home from work. The only thing that he could positively say he had done right in his life.

Benjamin Patrick Caine, who had been born so perfect and beautiful. Who had been a miracle. Who had less than six months left to live.

Caine senior had been 52 years old when his third wife, nearly twenty years his junior, had told him she was pregnant. He'd accused her of being unfaithful, as for years he had been told that because of his work the chances of him fathering a child were damned near impossible. But she hadn't relented. How could she have been unfaithful when his bodyguards constantly surrounded her? How could she have cheated on him when she almost couldn't have a single minute on her own?

He had insisted on blood tests, though, and they had – for once – proven his suspicions wrong. A miracle, certainly.

Yet a flawed one.

Benjamin's blood disease had been first diagnosed when he was seven. Extremely rare, only one case in several million. Genetically transmitted, it was inherited from the maternal side, although it only affected males. No cure known, the children suffering it rarely lived past their eighth birthday. And they died in terrible pain.

No matter how much money of his vast fortune he had invested in medical research, no matter how many of Caine's resources he had applied to the search of alternative remedies, Benjamin had grown weaker and weaker with each passing month. All he had managed to achieve was to gain more time.

More time, for what?

His wife was gone now, although – unlike the previous two ones – she hadn't settled for a discreet divorce and a really generous alimony payment. She had taken her own life, unable to cope with the pain of a dying son and the increasing distance and blaming stare of her husband. Foster Caine had found the body still holding the empty flask of pills. He hadn't attended her funeral.

Benjamin was dying. The only person he had ever really loved all his life was living on borrowed time, and the only chance he had now left to save him implied maybe destroying all that he had ever accomplished in his life.

It was a price well worth paying, he thought.

Caine felt a presence at his side, as he looked through the window into the isolated hospital room in which his dying son slowly faded away. He didn't need to turn his head to know who it was.

Towering over him, six feet four over his average five-six, the man with the pristine white hair and the equally immaculate lab coat stood at his side without uttering a word.

Stronghein was almost ninety years old, though his mannerisms and energy were the ones of a much younger man. His ice-cold blue eyes were piercing and emotionless, with no need for reading glasses, and his body was still taut and lean, barely showing the decay of such an advanced age. He always managed to make Caine's blood run cold even with his mere presence, which was an amazing achievement considering the kind of person he was.

"Talk to me, doctor," Caine said, rubbing his neatly-trimmed, gray-peppered beard.

There was a slight trace of Germanic accent in the older man when he spoke, barely noticeable. "Have you really thought this through?"

"Haven't done anything else for the past two weeks, ever since your proposal. I don't see any other solution."

"You could just let him go. God knows he has suffered more than enough."

Caine had to make a superhuman effort not to smirk at that. If there was one man who didn't believe in a supreme being and who knew neither compassion nor mercy, his name had to be Heinrich Stronghein.

The bearded man darted a sideways look at him. "That's not an option."

The doctor nodded. "It could bring everything crashing down around us, you know. This will surely set eyes on us. Eyes we don't want to be looking at what we do. At what we _intend_ to achieve."

"I'm willing to take the risk."

"But maybe others won't," Stronghein's voice was as cold as his eyes. It wasn't like he really cared one way or another, Caine knew. Whatever the outcome, it was the process that drove him. The endless, fanatical search for knowledge.

For him, Benjamin was another interesting piece of study, like uncountable others. Just another stepping stone on the road to help him reach a little further.

There was an edge in the bearded trillionaire's voice when he spoke, "I run this show."

"So used to say Linderman," the doctor observed analytically. "Have you gotten any news from him lately? Oh, excuse me, I forgot how hard it is to talk with such a big hole in your head."

"Do you have the file?" Caine cut the conversation off. There was nothing more he wanted to discuss about the subject now other than how to pull it off.

Indeed, the doctor was holding a manila folder and he handed it to the younger man. The trillionaire opened it and examined its contents.

There were several reports, tracking files, medical analyses going years back in time. And pictures, most of them taken with a long-distance objective lens. All of them of the same person.

Caine stopped at one that seemed to be a high-school yearbook picture. The blonde girl who was protagonist of the file was smiling at him it, beautiful in her young innocence.

_Claire Bennet. Union Wells HS cheerleading squad co-captain. Class of 2006 _– said the legend under the photo -. _Motto: 'Live life to the fullest, you could die tomorrow!'_

The bearded man's eyes looked back through the window. His son was still dying on the other side. He took a cell phone out of his pocket and dialled a number programmed into the memory.

After a single ring, a male voice picked up at the other end of the line. "Ditko."

"Bring her in." There was no emotion in Caine's voice now, only a numb calm. "Kill anyone who gets in your way."

---O---

_To be continued..._


	4. Chapter Three: Fight or Flight

**Chapter Three****: Fight or flight**

_Leaning over you here  
Cold and catatonic  
I catch a brief reflection  
Of what you could and I might have been  
It's your right and your ability  
To become my perfect enemy_

"_Passive," A Perfect Circle_

_Peter Petrelli remembers… _

…_a sad little smile, and thinking 'she's too pretty to look this sad'…_

…_saying 'life after high school, it gets better,' even though he doesn't really think that at all, because his own life was and is not better, but he wants to cheer her up, although he doesn't know why…_

…_crashing against her for the second time, this time seeing her covered in blood and eyes wide in fear, and realizing that she is THE ONE…_

…_shouting at her to go, because all of a sudden she is no longer this two-dimensional character on canvas, this vague cheerleader he has to save in order to save the world, she is real, flesh and blood, and she is scared to death, and he wants to tell her everything will be alright, but he knows he would be lying if he did that, he knows what it'll take to save the cheerleader…_

…_taking a leap of faith, falling to his death, but not being scared…_

…_coming back, regenerating and seeing her and knowing she would be there, being in so much pain it's unbelievable, and his mind is racing in all different directions and he is thinking all sorts of stupid things, and making connections where in the light of the day there would be none. Because this moment is magical, and everything makes sense, understanding that it is not a case of if A then follows B, but A so there can be B, and this is the beginning of something much larger, larger than their lives apart, because she is special just like him, and she is going to be special TO him somehow, and he knows, he KNOWS..._

_...hearing 'I'm Claire,' from her lips so shyly and thinking how silly it is to remember at this precise moment that of all the classical music he was forced to listen to by his parents when little, the only piece he ever was transfixed by was Debussy's 'Clair de Lune' and, does it mean something? But he asks something different, something stupid like if he has saved the world by saving her, and it sounds crazy even to his own ears, but she just says she doesn't know, she is just a cheerleader, and her face is one of pain, and he wants to comfort her, but it hurts SO much still and there's not enough air coming into his lungs, and Sylar is still around somewhere..._

_...being lost and alone in jail, interrogated by that cop who seems able to read his mind, and all he can think is of her and if she will be safe, there is so much pain from the howl of the telepathic feedback and he is angry because no one is looking for her nor after her..._

_...seeing her coming into his cell when he is at his lowest, and God, she is glowing, but she is so young and petite and sweet sixteen and never-been-kissed, but she is alive and safe and everything is alright again, and he puts on a brave face although there's something wrong with him and he knows it, but he doesn't want to scare her away, and he can't stop looking at her, and then he can't look at her because he is sure her father will think he is some kind of pervert, but then he goes away and he can't stop looking into those green eyes, and he died and so did she but it is no big deal, and he is totally her hero, and he won't quit smiling because no one has ever told him anything like that before and actually meant it..._

_...walking the path of dreams, and the entire city is empty apart from these few strangers he doesn't even know, and this is so much like the prophetic nightmare he'd had the night Nathan and Heidi had almost died thanks to Linderman's goons, and she runs away from him in her cheerleader uniform, and his heart breaks as he explodes..._

_...plunging to certain death again thanks to Claude, and she is the last thing he thinks of, why, oh why?..._

_...beating death yet again, and once again she is there with a sharp piece of glass covered in his blood in her tiny hand, and he is not surprised it was she who'd saved him, but then they tell him who she really is and his brain says that now everything makes sense, that this strange connection he feels between them is because she is his niece and blood calls to blood, but a tiny voice inside his heart is screaming that it is not right, that this is NOT how it should be..._

_...she says she is going away, putting an entire ocean between them, and he doesn't want to let her go, because he knows he'll need her at his side to stop whatever is coming, he knows he won't make it without her, it's not random, it's fate and destiny..._

_...drying her tears, wanting nothing more than to embrace her and sooth her pain and it's true it wasn't until he met her that he felt that he felt like he belonged somewhere, because he always was the odd one out even in his own family..._

_...and everything's going wrong, and it wasn't supposed to be like this, but she is there and he finds the strength within himself to tame the wild power, and he fights but he loses, and Nathan saves the day, saves them all, and it is too much pain to bear, and he can't take it any longer so he flies, flies away, from pain, from her..._

_...Peter Petrelli finally remembers it all._

_And it hurts like hell to do so. Like someone is ripping the heart out from his chest._

_Like someone is tearing his soul apart._

---O---

**Lower East Side, New York.****  
May, 2009**

Claire Bennet had a dirty little secret.

Well, to be honest she had quite a few, the biggest one probably being the fact that she harbored rather inappropriate feelings for an older man that happened to be her biological uncle. And who currently was in a catatonic state with little hope of ever waking up.

But most of the time she was in absolute denial of such a secret actually being true, so she could more or less cope with that one. Even though Claire was sure her mom was probably wondering about the boyfriend situation, and now with college just around the corner most likely her dad was too. They'd probably wig out completely if they heard that particular secret, and Lyle would probably try to blackmail her about it, the little twerp. Good thing she was able to cover these things up like that. Even to herself.

Anyway, the dirty secret Claire was especially ashamed of was embodied by the closed cardboard box laying at her feet, while she sat on the bed of Peter's old apartment in Manhattan.

She had received the keys from the Petrelli attorneys in a thick envelope along with a notification that the rent would be religiously paid in the future from one of the family's numerous bank accounts, the information on her own trust fund – the one that still remained untouched to this day – and the address of the rest home where Peter would be taken to once discharged from the hospital.

Claire had begged her father to drive her there from the hotel they were living in at the time, because Peter would need clothes and stuff that would help him feel more at home now that he was going to spend time in a strange place, something that would help him not to feel alone and lost. And he probably would have plants to be watered or fish to be fed or something, and somebody had to do that.

In hindsight, the blonde teenager knew she had sounded desperate and pleading, and maybe even childish in doing so. But Noah Bennet hadn't argued about it, hadn't protested one bit. He had just retrieved the keys of his rented car and driven through the nightmarish chaos of Manhattan traffic to take her to Peter's place.

The Texan girl had thought at first he'd done it either out of guilt or gratitude, but now she wasn't sure. Maybe he understood she had a connection to Peter Petrelli, she was the only one left now of his biological family. Although, even at the time, Claire didn't think her feelings for him had anything to do with the blood that ran through both their veins.

Or maybe Noah Bennet really was just grateful to the young man for having saved his daughter's life once, and feeling guilty how he could do nothing for the comatose Peter. Her dad's mind had been a complete mystery to her during those days.

The first time she had been to Peter's digs, Claire had been a bit shocked by how un-Peter the apartment actually was. Too dark and somber, she had thought. But later she had started thinking that maybe she was wrong, because she didn't really know him. The image of the heroic savior she had in her head was based on the actions of the guy that had saved her on Homecoming night, of the young man dressed in tan and light colors, of the stranger that had taken a second to try and cheer up a troubled girl he didn't even know.

And maybe Peter Petrelli was nothing like that. Maybe, she started believing as she went through the apartment with her father, he was just as troubled as herself. Maybe there was a meaning to the lack of personal items in the place, to the fact that she was only able to see two framed pictures in the living room – the very same one with Nathan at her biological father's wedding that she had already seen at the Petrelli manor, and an older photograph with all his family. She had taken a few seconds to examine this one.

The brothers - Nathan looked about twenty-something, she guessed, Peter no more than ten - were dressed in suits like they were about to go to Sunday mass. A younger Angela Petrelli, a beautiful if cold woman, and a man whose likeness to Nathan was more than remarkable completed the portrait. She'd realized at that moment that she didn't even know the Petrelli patriarch's first name, and he was her biological grandfather.

None of them were smiling in the picture either.

So many of Peter's clothes were black it was scary. At the beginning she had tagged him as being 'emo' because of his hair, but now he seemed to fit the definition to the letter. The only thing she knew was it was obvious her uncle wasn't trying to make a fashion statement, or going through some sort of rebel phase. He was just a somber, lonely man.

Claire wanted to bring light into his life.

His bed had been unmade, and she knew if her father hadn't been with her at the time she would have laid there, enveloped herself in the covers and tried to win back some of the warmth and scent of him that still had to linger in the tangled sheets.

She was a silly child with a crush, and she'd felt a bit ashamed because of it.

But then, one day weeks later, Claire had come across the box.

That day she'd been on her own. Her father was too busy getting everything organized for her mom and brother to come to New York and she'd had to get a stupidly complicated combination of buses and trains to make it to the apartment. And the one that she would need later in order to go to Peter's rest home was even more appalling.

Miss Bennet remembered having thought at that moment that she would need her own car, because she simply couldn't afford either the time it would require to travel by public transport once she returned to school, or the amount of money to go by taxi. And she planned to go see her hero as often as she could, 'cause she was not going to let him vegetate alone in that place, no matter how luxurious and expensive it was.

Claire had been getting fresh clothes for Peter, blushing a little at the notion that she was actually digging through his underwear and moving it round, when a couple of rolled socks fell off the pile she was carrying at that moment and bounced on the floor to end up under the bed.

She had knelt down to retrieve them and had seen the box.

Her first thought was that it was his hidden stash of porn. And first she had giggled like the schoolgirl she was, but then the image of Peter doing what boys do while watching those kind of movies had crept uninvited into her head, and in spite of being alone Claire had blushed so violently that she was sure her face would have been matching her old cheerleader uniform if she had been wearing it.

No, it couldn't be. No way her Peter would do that kind of stuff.

Only, he wasn't _her _Peter. And he was a man, after all. And men _did _that kind of stuff. All the time, too, if what she had heard in the girls' locker room back in Texas was true.

The mental image had refused to go away.

Curiosity had replaced shame and she had taken the box from under the bed. Yet she had spent the next five minutes with her hands on the lid of the box, unable to open it. There was this warm feeling in the pit of her belly, one that was neither entirely pleasurable nor completely disgusting.

She had had a vague feeling of dread, too. Because, what if she didn't like what was there in the box? What if seeing its contents shattered the image she had of Peter Petrelli, hero extraordinaire?

What if he was into weird stuff like – and here she only had very fuzzy notions of the subject – leather and chains and _things? _

And, what if he had this huge collection of dirty mags about barely legal cheerleaders?

Claire's blush had been so violent by now that she seemed to be the one about to go into nuclear meltdown.

She had opened Pandora's box.

And of course, there had been no porn in it at all, much to her disappointement and relief. Instead, there had been something much, much worse. Something way more dangerous.

The contents of the box contained Peter Petrelli's handwritten diaries, from age 13 to barely a couple of weeks previously. Tens of near-identical hardcover blue notebooks, stacked into the box side to side and up to the lid. There were no labels on the covers saying _'My Diary'_ or stuff like that, like in the ones she had been given as presents a couple of times when she was 12 or so herself and which she had only bothered in writing stuff like _'I like this boy, he's __**so **__dreamy'_ or _'I hate that girl, she's a bitch'_ before her teen-short attention span had flown somewhere else.

No, these notebooks were the real deal. Written front to back with his flowing, elegant scripture. His most private thoughts and feelings poured on paper over the years. His deepest secrets only whispered by the scratch of a ballpen.

They had burnt like red-hot coal on her fingers.

Claire had closed the lid, returned the box to its refuge under the bed and ran away like Sylar himself was chasing her. That first time, she had even forgotten getting Peter's clothes.

The second time, she hadn't even opened the box. Nor the third time. Nor many of the following times she'd visited Peter's apartment.

But she always got it out from under the bed. Always transfixed by its contents.

What right did she have to read them? How would Peter feel if he ever found out? Betrayed? Disappointed? Angry at her?

Sometimes she had managed to open the box. Sometimes she had gone even as far as holding one of the notebooks in her hands. And she had done so reverently, as if they had been alive. As if they had been holy books that held of the secrets of life and God himself.

Claire had never read one of them, though, not until the day a nameless doctor had torn her heart to pieces in the rest home. He had been an elderly man, a grandfather type she had seen walking around and taking care of the patients at the Synger rest home. By then, the young Texan girl was already well known to the rest home workers, the shy blonde who came more often than anyone else to visit the handsome young man with the vacant eyes and the unchanging expression.

She had known the doctor had meant well, but his words had only hurt her in the deepest part of her being. _"You're a nice girl, Claire, and I think it's truly wonderful what you're doing for your uncle. But you should start thinking about yourself too, sweetheart, you should start thinking about living your own life. You have to accept that it's been a while and he's obviously not going to be waking up anytime soon, if ever. So don't waste your life in here, I'm sure Peter wouldn't have wanted you to do that. Go out with your friends, live, have fun and be happy..."_

The young Bennet girl had cried all the way home, so much that it wasn't until she found herself at Peter's apartment door that she had realized she had gone there instead of to her parents' new home in Queens, like she used to do whenever visiting her uncle.

She had been crying when she'd fallen down upon his bed - for the first time, although she had changed the sheets long ago. She had been crying as she got the box from under the matress, and when she opened it and grabbed a notebook at random.

Claire's tears had only stopped when she began reading.

_**February 18**__**th**__**, 2000**_

_I told Dad today that I'm going to quit law school. I thought he was going to be angry at me, shout or something, but he didn't. He only got this half-disappointed expression on his face and walked out of the room, as if he had been expecting it all along. I probably shouldn't even be surprised, I don't know why I ever thought he would react otherwise. Nathan was the one who yelled at me, the one that actually acted like he cared. He called me immature and foolish and a lot of other things, told me I had to get my head out of the clouds and enter the real world. I was barely listening to him though, I couldn't stop thinking about Dad's face and his expression. I wonder if he's ever had any faith in me._

Claire had read that entire diary in one go. When she had finished, she had looked out the window and found that it was already dark. Her cell had beeped and, on examination, she had discovered at least ten missed calls from both her parents' numbers. She hadn't even heard them.

Her father had picked her up less than an hour later and taken her back to Queens. Neither of them had spoken a word during the journey. She had held onto Peter's notebook all the way home. Claire had never once let it go while her mother had yelled at her and confined her to her room until she was 30 or so, because Sandra had been so scared that her little girl would be found raped, dead, or something even worse.

Her father, though, he had said nothing.

Claire had neither cried nor raised her voice in protest. She had just gone to her room as told and gotten in bed, holding the diary to her chest like it was a shield.

The next day, it had been her first day at the new school. Her dad had taken her there without saying a word. It had been a horrible day too, new school, no friends, the out of state girl lost in the big city and forced to repeat some subjects because she'd missed too many classes to pass - apparently, saving the world didn't give you any extracurricular credits - Claire had only found strength in Peter's diary, carefully hidden among her schoolbooks in her backpack.

Her father had picked her up when classes were over and, after another half an hour of silence, Claire couldn't stand it anymore and had asked, "Dad, are you still mad at me?"

Noah Bennet hadn't answered. Instead, he had driven into Manhattan. To the door of Peter's apartment building. It was only there that he finally spoke, and only to softly say, "I'll wait here. I'll take you to him when you're finished."

He had understood. Somehow he had, and Claire had kissed him on the cheek before rushing upstairs. She had substituted the diary for another one, gathered what she had needed to take to Peter and then they were gone.

And the ritual had repeated itself for the next few months, until her mother had gotten over her big scare and her daughter was again allowed to come and go without an escort.

To this day, Claire still had no true idea about her father's intentions during that time. She didn't know if he had simply wanted to regain her trust, or if he'd truly understood how desperately she'd needed to maintain the connection to Peter. How desperately she had needed to know that it hadn't all been a dream, that it had all been real.

By now, Claire had read all of Peter's diaries. Out of order, some days a few entries, others a full diary, like she was composing a very complicate puzzle whose final picture she only had a vague idea as it formed in front of her eyes. She had drunk his memories as if she had been dying of thirst. She had soaked herself with them and let them get under her skin.

She had been learning about Peter Petrelli from scratch.

His daily fight to be something more than what his family thought he was. His insecurities about them being proven right in the end. His first loves and his falling outs, his passions and his disappointments, his fears and his joys.

Claire had started getting to know him. _Really _know him.

_After quitting law school, he had taken a sabbatical and had crossed the States in an old motorbike, working odd jobs here and there along the way… _

_He got his first kiss at 14, but hadn't lost his virginity until 19, he had been in love with both girls, but they had left him shortly after… _

_At 15, he had tried out for his school's soccer team, following in Nathan's footsteps, who had been his team's captain; he had later returned home with a note from the coach to his parents, telling them his body was way too fragile and he should try something more suited to his condition, like chess or the math club, and he had never felt more humiliated in his life…_

_Almost six months before crashing into her in the hallway of Union Wells High, he had met Simone Deveaux and fallen for her; he thought it was love, but sometimes wondered if it was just infatuation, if he wasn't seeing in her the kind of woman – intelligent, beautiful, socially adept – that would please his parents…_

After a while, Claire was able to discern his moods just by looking at his handwriting, how the various letters were written smoothly when he was happy, how they became completely vertical when upset or worried, how he used only tiny capitals when he was angry.

_He could play the piano, and loved motorbikes. His mother had forced him to learn the first and forbidden him to own or ride the second, but to his delight, his hero of a big brother had sneaked him in to take driving lessons when he was 15 and he had bought his first bike - an old Norton Commando - the day he became 18. _

_He started smoking cigarettes at 16 just to rebel, but Nathan had caught him one day and, instead of telling on him, he had forced him to smoke a whole pack in one go. He had been so sick after that, he had never smoked another one ever again._

Claire's preconceptions had faded away with each new entry she read. Little by little, page by page, Peter Petrelli became more and more real, less of a fantasy. And her teenaged feelings of worship and admiration were replaced by something deeper and more meaningful.

Yet, it was only during the late hours at night, when she switched off the light after having been reading for an hour too long and she could feel herself falling asleep even before she could find a comfortable position in her bed, that society's conventions and values lost their weight and became something vague and stupid, that she would admit the truth of what was happening to her.

It was only in those brief moments before slumber took her away that Claire Bennet admitted she was falling in love.

_He had hated and loved his father. He had loved and hated his mother. He had hated and loved, and then loved and hated and once again hated and loved Nathan with all his heart. _

_And he had wanted to believe with a desperate need that sometimes Nathan loved him back, or that he even hated him. And his father the same. Ditto his mother. _

_That they had feelings - ANY feelings - for him, that he was not just an...accessory. A mistake that had happened fourteen years after they had produced the son and heir they'd been looking for, and who was so perfect and the mirror image of them that Nathan was all they needed or wanted._

_That he was the kind of little brother a big one loves and wants to protect and not the sort that annoys and one wishes he had never been born, because things were perfect the way they were before he'd arrived. That he was not a house guest in his own home._

Then one day Claire had come across the last diary he had written. The one with his dreams of soaring over New York. The one with him jumping off a building, just because he had dreamt he could fly. The one with the Hiro from the future and his orders to save the cheerleader, save the world. The one where everything was coming together at last, after so long.

The one where he had written about her.

Peter´s last diary entry was from a couple of days before he flew all the way to Texas to save her from Sylar, before it had all become so rushed and chaotic he'd had no further chance to put his thoughts to paper before entering coma-ville.

_I've dreamt about her again. The cheerleader. I wonder if Nathan's right, if it's becoming an unhealthy obsession of mine. There's this girl that I don't even know, that I've never seen but who was painted on canvas by a junkie who sees things that haven't happened yet. A girl who I was told to save by a man from the future. _

_I know that if I sat down to think about it, I'd have to agree with my brother. It's madness. So I don't sit down and think about it. Weird as it is, but I'm moving on pure instinct these days, by what my heart and not my brain tells me. And my heart is telling me I have to find her. I have to save her. _

_I wonder what she actually looks like. I also wonder what in the hell I'll tell her. The truth? Will she think I'm a lunatic? Yeah, probably. But somehow I also know she'll understand. She's special, I don't know how but I can feel it. We're connected in some way that I can't quite grasp yet. Why do I feel like we're the same, and we're destined to do great things together?_

_She is special…and I still don't even know her name._

And now, two years after she had finished reading the diaries, Claire was back to square one. Sitting on Peter's bed, wondering if she should open the box again or not. But she was no longer the traumatized little girl she had been when first coming across it. She might still be technically in her teens, but in the two and a half years that had passed since the night of the exploding man, she had become a woman. A legal adult. And part of the responsibility for her maturing process was in the diaries kept in that box.

"You can't live always in fear," she whispered to herself.

Claire opened the box and got out the notebook on top. It was that last one. It was _her _notebook.

Grabbing a pen from her purse, she opened the diary by its last written page and, like maybe thousands of times before, read it again.

…_She is special…and I still don't even know her name. _

So many times she had wondered what she would tell him if - _when _- Peter would wake up. If she would confess her sins to him. If she would tell him that she had deliberately violated his privacy, and felt no shame in having done so.

Well, Claire was quite sure she would keep that last part to herself. She had weighed the consequences many times, and besides the most likely outcome was that telling Peter about her feelings would only freak him out and scare him away.

But the diaries? She _had _to tell him about that, Claire just wasn't sure she would have the guts to do it. So, in order to force herself, she applied the point of the pen to the paper and wrote something down beneath the last sentence he'd ever written.

_My name is Claire Bennet. You were right all along. Thank you for saving me, in more ways than you could ever possibly know. _

_Thank you for making me special, Peter. _

The Texan girl sighed and, after caressing his handwriting with her fingertips, she closed the book and returned it to the box. She then put it under the bed and stood up. Another secret swept under the proverbial carpet.

She retrieved her backpack and walked out of the apartment, switching off the lights on her way.

Peter was waiting for her, like he always did.

---O---

They were watching her.

Sitting inside their unmarked 2006 Charger, Ditko and Cockrum saw Claire coming out of the apartment building and cross the street to her parked car. They themselves were parked half a block downstreet, carefully observing all her movements through the deeply tinted windows of the Dodge. The two men in black had been following her all day.

Cockrum whistled in appreciation as the petite blonde bent over in order to adjust the driver's seat. Apparently, the ancient Volkswagen had more than its share of little kinks and faults. "Nice ass."

The older man gave his partner a disgusted look. "Please, she's just a kid!"

"She's over 18, isn't she? Legal in the eyes of God and the government."

Ditko, who was behind the wheel, shook his head in disapproval as he started the engine. He waited for the blonde to venture into the traffic before pulling his own vehicle out to follow her. He left a few cars in the middle, just for safety, but not many. It wasn't good that the Rabbit was yellow in a city where 97 of the vehicles on the streets were cabs.

To be honest, Ditko hated New York City. Hated the sweating crowds of strangers that mercilessly pushed their way past you on the sidewalks. Hated the way in which nobody looked into nobody's eyes. Hated the dirty underground roamed by punks and homeless people. Hated the postcard landmarks brimming with stupid tourists. Hated the seedy sex shops and the prostitutes offering themselves at night.

It was an unclean city that corrupted anyone walking its streets. He felt dirty just by being there.

Cockrum was still talking about how hot Claire Bennet was and what a shame it was that she was going to spend the rest of her life as a guinea pig. He was tired of hearing it. Ditko was tired of so many things that he felt like shooting his partner just to get some piece and quiet around here.

"Who'd you get for the job?" Ditko asked, finally interrupting Cockrum's monologue about what he wished he could do with the former cheerleader. "Local muscle?"

The younger operative nodded. "Westies. Good 'ol boys from Clinton, like we discussed."

_The Westies. _Irish crime gangs that had ruled Hell's Kitchen until the Seventies, when alcohol and cocaine had splintered them apart and opened the way for the Italians and the African-Americans to take over. They were just a shadow of their former selves now, little more than hired muscle for other groups. But they were still ruthless and brutal, some of the most hardened and sociopathic members of New York's criminal underworld.

Nathan Petrelli had been especially ruthless with them during his time in the DA's office. He had put a lot of them behind bars and been an instrumental figure in cleaning up Hell's Kitchen streets, so it could become the idealized yuppie Clinton neighborhood. There was a lot of bad blood there because of that, and the Irish never forgot and definitely never forgave.

Sure, the two operatives could have snatched the blonde girl themselves at many different times and places, but that simply was not the way they worked. If Ditko's bosses had wanted Claire Bennet publicly kidnapped, bagged and delivered to them, they would have given the job to just about anyone else.

But that wasn't the reason why Caine had assigned the job to them. No, Ditko and Cockrum had been chosen to do it because they were...invisible. It wouldn't be them who would be doing the actual crime, unlike that little song and dance act with the O'Connor's.

Cockrum had hired some Westies. They would hit the scene when the young Texan female was visiting Peter Petrelli, their contract was to kill the unresponsive vegetable and collect the girl. Kill anyone who got in their way afterwards, too. Later, once the goons had turned over the blonde to them, Ditko and Cockrum would lose no time in executing them all.

The police would find the bodies along with the guns used in the hit and think that Peter Petrelli had been the intended primary target, an act of vengeance against his brother or maybe something just to get rid of the only witness to the late Congressman's disappearance. Claire would merely be collateral damage, the Westies were such mad dogs it wasn't unthinkable they would have snatched her in the heat of the moment in order to gang-rape her during some sort of disturbing post-mission party celebration. Her body would never be found, and it would be assumed she had just been dumped in the river afterwards.

Another mysterious vanishing act associated with the Petrelli clan. The papers would no doubt say that the family was cursed, even worse than the Kennedy's.

Claire took the motorway towards Long Island and they followed her, like wolves after their prey.

---O---

_Peter lies motionless on the sand. His whole body feels numb, as if he had had a long bath in ice-cold water. He remembers now, remembers everything and wishes he didn't. Because it just hurts so much. _

_His eyes are lost in the clouded sky, on the sun that so valiantly tries to fight through the clouds to warm him up a little. Charles towers over him, like a silhouette against the daylight. Somehow, he knows the older man is smiling. _

"_Are you done down there?" he asks. "If you want to throw another fit, I can wait. I'll just sit down for awhile."_

_The black man's mirth is unsettling and out of place, but at the same time it helps Peter focus. "I think I hate you."_

"_Well, that's a beginning," Charles chuckles, leaning down and offering his hand._

_The boy in white accepts it and lets the older man help him stand up. For a few seconds, they look into each other's eyes without saying a word. Measuring each other, trying to gaze into the other man's soul. Peter is the first one to break contact, he is unable to tell if he is looking into a mirror or not._

"_What do you want from me?" he asks._

"_I have two messages for you, Peter. One is from me, the second from yourself."_

_Peter doesn't even try to decipher the man's cryptic remark. He just turns away from him and looks into the horizon, where the vast dead ocean meets the darkening sky. There is a mighty storm coming, indeed. He can feel it now in the very marrow of his bones, in every pore of his skin and every nerve ending of his body. The air is charged with electricity. His heart is beating faster, but not with the crazy gallop of before._

_Charles continues, "And I have a piece of advice, too. You have to stop assuming you know yourself, or that you know the whole truth. You don't, Peter. Not even half of it. But you're gonna find out, and you're not going to like what you learn."_

"_What is the truth then?"_

"_That is for you and only you to find out. I can only give you one clue, and that's my first message for you. I didn't just die, Peter. I was __**killed**__."_

_Now the boy's stare shoots back to his old friend, shocked. "What?"_

_Charles' smile is a sad one. "Don't ask me to elaborate any further, 'cause I can't. Just know that I'm not lying, that you're not imagining it, that that part of me that was left in you is telling you the truth. It's not vengeance that I want, though. I'm at peace now, Peter, and I've accepted my end was decided long ago by the choices that I and I alone made in my life. I'm telling you this now, because you need to know if you want to survive the coming storm."_

_Peter is speechless. It's a whole minute until he is able to regain his wits. "So what's your second message?"_

_The black man he once loved like a father leans closer to him. He speaks with a whisper into his ear, as if what he is about to say is so secret he cannot risk even the wind to eavesdrop. _

"_You can't live always in fear."_

_Charles steps back from him, as Peter gives him a frown, not really understanding that. But it's okay, the black man knows he doesn't, still can't. But he will, soon enough. "And now you can go. You're needed somewhere else."_

"_But…you can't just leave me like this, Charles. I don't understand…you have to help me!"_

_The older man is still smiling, as he sits down again in his reclining chair and inspects the fishing cane. "I'm not your Yoda or Obi-Wan Kenobi, Peter. I've not come to train you in the ways of the Force or anything like that. I'm just a friend, who loves you like a son. Who would have been happy to have you as the father of his grandchildren."_

"_But I don't want to go back! I'll just fail again!"_

_Nodding, Charles relaxes back on his chair. He crosses his arms behind his head and props his feet up. He is the image of blissful carelessness. "That's always a possibility, I guess. But look at it this way: if you try, you can either succeed or fail. But if you don't even try, failure will be the only option."_

"_And then what?" the boy in white demands to know. The faces of all those he has failed in the past are constantly flashing through his mind with stabs of pain in his heart. That's why he came here, he knows that now, to stop feeling that pain. And in doing so, Peter now understands, he committed his final act of betrayal, leaving behind all those he was supposed to care about and for. _

"_So what'll happen then, Charles? How many lives will be lost this time when I fail?"_

_Charles tilts his head only for a heartbeat. Then, he makes himself comfortable on the chair, covering his eyes with the straw hat as if getting ready to take a nap. He simply says, "All of them."_

_It feels to Peter like he has just been kicked in the stomach. "All my friends? All my family?"_

"_No, Peter," the black man answers calmly. "I meant all human life, everyone everywhere on the face of this planet."_

---O---

**Long Island, New York.****  
May, 2009**

They were still watching Claire when she arrived at the rest home. Carefully following each and every one of her steps as she parked the tiny Volkswagen and got out of it. Eyes like hawks' set dead on her petite frame, as she nimbly walked into the building.

"I'll give her five minutes before we make the call," Ditko said as he retrieved a sliver of nicotine chewing gum from the inner pocket of his jacket.

Cockrum arched an eyebrow at noticing this. "You still trying to quit?"

"Yeah," the older man groaned. "Marisa is driving me crazy about it. She's in one of her healthy life phases."

His partner chuckled. "Man, if you're going to die of something, it's gonna be her cooking. I've never had a stew worse than hers, and I was stationed in Iraq for three years."

"Hey, watch your mouth when you're talking about my wife," Ditko said, dead serious. "I have a gun, you know."

As his partner laughed good naturedly, the older man in black began to chew nervously. He was craving a cigarette so bad he could have murdered for one. "I don't like this, you know."

"Like what?"

"This whole assignment," Ditko fumed. "I don't like it in the least. It's, I don't know. Way too far off of our standard procedures."

"I don't see how, it's not the first time we've retrieved a subject for examination." It was easier to say _'subject' _and _'examination' _than '_girl' _and _'vivisection'. _What they did might be for the good of the world, but some pills were easier to swallow when coated in sugar.

"Screw that horse hockey! I'm worried about something else," the gray-haired man grunted. "I'm telling you, partner, that's Noah Bennet's daughter we're gonna grab here. Do you have any idea how many different kinds of fans the shit will hit, if he ever finds out we put her in a Company lab? And terminating Angela Petrelli's son? I don't even want to start thinking about the repercussions of _that._"

"Last I heard, Bennet was working solo these days and the Petrelli woman had vanished off the face of Earth." Cockrum shrugged. "Doesn't sound like much of a threat to me."

Ditko gave his partner a sideways look. "Oh, to once again be that young and naïve…"

As he looked outside, checking that the Bennet girl hadn't unexpectedly come out of the building, Cockrum gave his partner the finger. The older man chuckled again, and continued speaking, "I saw that. But seriously, this stinks. And the worst part of all this is having to deal with those _Westies _scumbags. They're nothing but animals."

"Well, think of it this way," Cockrum said, producing his cell phone – a pre-paid, disposable, untraceable unit – and dialing a number. "You only need to look forward to the moment we kill those assholes."

The line was picked at the other side after a couple of calling signals, and a rough voice answered. "Yeah, this is Tommy Gunn."

Cockrum rolled his eyes, he could almost smell the whisky though the phone. But he said cheerily, "Hey, my main man Tommy! Are you cool to roll, already?"

"Yeah, just waitin' for ya call. My arse is gettin' flat, man," the thug groaned.

"Well then, my Irish friend, the wait is over. You can start whenever you want."

"'Bout time, mate!" the gangster laughed. "I've seen that pretty blonde gal, this is really goin' ta be fun!"

The younger man in black hung up without waiting for the other man to say anymore. He exhibited a disgusted face as he looked at his partner. "You know what? You were right about the 'animals' thing. And I'm REALLY going to enjoy terminating those morons."

Ditko shook his head. Looked at the rest home with intensity and, without deviating his eyes one iota, he obtained a new piece of nicotine gum and put it into his mouth. This assignment really sucked.

Big time.

---O---

It was worse than murder. Worse than genocide. Worse than the seven plagues of Egypt all wrapped into one with a nice little bow on top.

Claire stood in the doorway of Peter's room, transfigured by a rage that was beyond anything she had ever believed she could summon within herself. She could feel her face turning crimson red, her lungs filling and emptying with ragged breaths and her eyes so wide open that her eyeballs threatened with popping out by themselves. There was also a vein beating in her temple, but she was barely conscious of that because, to be honest, all her attention was currently focused in trying to hate the nurse called Samantha to death.

"What. Have. You. DONE?!" Miss Bennet yelled, at the top of her lungs.

The buxom nurse was standing right behind the Texan girl's immobile uncle, a pair of scissors in one hand, a hairbrush in the other and a shocked look on her face. The young man was wearing a long towel around his neck, covering the combination of dressing gown and pajamas with which he was usually wore at the rest home.

The towel, and the floor all around him, was covered with hair. _His _hair.

Samantha had just _dared _to cut his hair off, and now Petrelli's silky emo bangs had all but completely disappeared. In their place, he wore a slicked back conservative look that didn't suit him at all. And what was more, it only helped to accentuate the gauntness and paleness that had overcome his body after spending more than two years with no more physical exercise than the therapeutically needed and being tube fed through his nose.

Peter Petrelli seemed sickly now, more than ever. Like a refugee from some Nazi death camp that had lost all will to live.

"Honey, I don't understand…" the nurse started saying.

Claire didn't even let her finish. "You…you…you…BITCH!!!"

Samantha was taken aback by the pure hate in the young girl's voice and could do nothing but to recoil in fear as the blonde advanced into the room with angry steps. But Claire's target wasn't herself, as she went straight for Peter and, kneeling down in front of the young man, cupped his face with her hands.

Regaining some of her authority, the red-haired nurse straightened and looked at the Texan from above. "There's no need to be so upset, Claire. This was something necessary, in fact it should've been done a long time ago. All that greasy hair was nothing but an incubator for lice-"

Claire stood up very slowly. Her fists were clenched so tight her knuckles had turned white. She advanced on the woman and, in spite of her smaller frame, the nurse found herself once again retreating. "His hair was not greasy, I was looking after it myself," the blonde whispered in barely suppressed rage. "There was no danger of lice, cooties or anything like that!"

"Claire, please calm down. I _really_ think you're making a mountain out of molehill here," Samantha tried to direct her steps towards the room's alarm. This kid obviously was obviously not wired together properly, and she wasn't being paid enough for this. "Now, why don't you relax and we'll discuss this rationally, alright? Do you want some tea or something?"

She was being quite irrational, Claire was conscious of that herself. It was only a haircut, nothing that time would not repair, and that was exactly all that Peter had. Time.

And that was what pissed the blonde Texan off. The impotence she felt for not being able to help him. The fact that no matter how much hope she managed to muster every single day before going into that room at the Synger rest home, by the time she left it that very hope was crushed a little more than the previous day.

The one-time cheerleader remembered a story from the Bible. She was not particularly religious herself but her adopted mother, good Southerner that she was, had always ensured that they went to church on Sundays and both Claire and her brother had attended Sunday school.

The story, anyway, was about a man - she didn't remember if he was an apostle, or a prophet or what - who was trying to understand God's will while he walked down a beach. He then came across a little kid who had dug a hole in the sand and he was running from the shore to the hole, getting water from the sea with his hands and pouring it into the hole. The man asked him what he was doing and the boy told him that he was trying to get the whole ocean into the hole. When the man told him that was impossible, the little kid answered that it would be easier for him to succeed in his task than for the man to understand God's reasons for His plans.

The thing was that Claire didn't identify with the man. She sometimes felt like the boy, trying to fill a little hole with all the water in the ocean. She was simply overwhelmed by the impossible task she had appointed herself with.

It was also a piece of music she had no idea how to play. She was trying to play it by heart, but most of the time Claire felt that she was missing more notes than she actually managed to hit.

The blonde girl knew that she was now venting all that frustration and confusion on the nurse, who didn't deserve such a diatribe for trying to do her job. But frankly, Claire was beyond caring at this point. All she knew was that her eyes burnt with unshed tears. That she was tired, too tired of fighting every fucking day for an impossible dream. That no matter how hard she tried, she always crashed against the same wall made of live rock.

_Peter Petrelli _rock, to be exact.

She had nearly cornered Samantha when it occurred to her the futility of her anger. What was she going to do? Scream at Samantha until her fake boobs exploded? Beat her until she was black and blue? Rip the scissors out of her hand and stab her in the eye?

Her homicidal fantasies spiraled out of control, growing into a bubble of soapy water until it simply popped. _Plick!_ And Claire felt herself deflating, the air rushing out of her lungs in a pained whistle. Drained, her knees weak, Claire had to sit down on the bed as her body was wracked by sobs.

Samantha stopped dead, her finger on the alarm button but yet to push it. The Texan girl was hiding her face between her hands, now crying openly.

Sighing, the nurse moved her hand away from the alarm and gently sat down at her side. She carefully put an arm around the younger girl's shoulders and let Claire lean on her. "It's alright, honey," she soothed her distraught companion. "It's alright."

Neither of them noticed Peter's right index finger twitching on the handrest of his wheelchair. Once, only once.

---O---

Thomas _'Tommy' _Gunn was 26 years old, of which he had already spent twelve of them housed by the state either in a reformatory or prison. When he walked into the reception area of the Synger rest home, actually, he had enjoyed barely seven months of freedom after completing a 5-year sentence at Riker's Island for beating a man into coma after an alcohol-fueled, football-related argument.

More than one person would argue that Tommy's behavior was nothing than another spin of an endless vicious circle. He had grown up in a rough environment, where violence and crime were not only considered acceptable, but a way of life. Many would say he had only become a reflection of all that he had been exposed to ever since he was a baby.

And maybe they would be right, but that didn't change the fact that Tommy was a mean son of a bitch who enjoyed hurting people, for fun or profit. The list of his crimes practically covered the whole of the U.S. criminal law code. Extortion, drug dealing, grand theft auto, assault with a deadly weapon, organized gambling and prostitution, contract murder…you name it, and he had surely done it at one time or another.

It was only street smarts and luck that he had never been caught for the worst things he had ever done, or by now he would have already been given 36 consecutive life sentences or the needle itself.

Luck for him, of course.

And maybe the worst part about the situation that evening when he walked into the rest home was that, out of the two men who crossed the threshold, Tommy was the _nicer_ one.

His partner was Patrick O'Leary. He was older than Tommy, well in his thirties, and a very silent man who unlike the New York-born and raised younger gangster, had been born in Dublin. He had been a _provo_, a member of the Provisional Irish Republican Army in the Nineties and a very active one at that.

O'Leary had been responsible for no less than thirty military actions against the British, with a body count that ascended well into the fifties. He had bombed military and civilian installations alike, murdered soldiers and political figures and generally done his best to spread chaos and terror in the name of his twisted idealistic version of Ireland.

Until he had grown disenchanted with the peace negotiations between Sinn Feinn and the British government, which had led to the 1997 ceasefire and the 1998 Good Friday agreement.

Yet, unlike most of his former allies, who had either accepted the terms of the agreement and gone into a peaceful retirement or joined split, continuant factions of the IRA, Patrick - and in this he was much like Tommy - simply enjoyed hurting his fellow human beings too much to quit or to keep going with what was now an obvious lost cause. He had emigrated to the U.S. and reinvented himself as a mobster.

Sad as, but there was simply too much of a large market demand for somebody of his talent and skill not to find employment straightaway.

They were as different physically as they were equally rotten on the inside. Tommy was a burly guy, short and broad shouldered with dark hair and dead blue eyes. He favored leather jackets, thick gold chains and sported a collection of tattoos on his arms and shoulders that reached up to the base of his neck. Patrick was skinny and tall, lanky like an elm tree, with balding reddish hair that he perpetually covered with a flat tweed cap. His green eyes, however, were as dead and emotionless as his partner's.

They had backup outside, two guys from Tommy's gang waiting in his Cadillac DTS with heavier weaponry than the pistols they carried themselves. But neither man thought they would need them. After all, this was just a little girl and a useless vegetable that they had to take care of, right?

A walk through the park, on a sunny say.

Martha, the motherly African-American caretaker who was Claire's friend, was on desk duty again today, and she instantly frowned at seeing these two men. By no means did they seem the type of visitor the rest home usually had. "Can I help you, gentlemen?"

"Yeah, luv, can you point us to Peter Petrelli's room?" Tommy asked, flashing his best reptilian grin.

Peter's last name tasted truly foul and bitter in Gunn's mouth, it should be noted. The man's older brother had personally prosecuted his own older brother years ago, and shown no mercy with him. The elder Gunn had gotten the needle after a building he had burned down in order to collect the insurance payment had happened to house several homeless persons that had died in the fire.

Nathan Petrelli had argued that Tommy's brother had known of the homeless people's presence and hadn't cared, that day he had gone for capital punishment and won. The fuckin' spaghetti bastard.

In Tommy's opinion, killing Petrelli's little brother was going to make his day. The money they would get paid for the job was only the cherry on top.

Martha didn't seem to be eager to collaborate. "I'm sorry, _gentlemen,_" and the word sounded like anything but what it actually meant, "but only family members are allowed to visit."

"But we _are_ family, luv! We're Peter's cousins from Ireland!"

The caretaker's eyebrow shot up. "I thought he didn't have any cousins. But it doesn't matter; visiting hours are over, anyway."

Tommy looked at her for a few seconds and then sighed and shrugged in defeat. He looked around, it was already late in the evening and there was no one else around. "That's a shame, luv. Pat?"

The former terrorist pulled out a silenced 9mm pistol and shot the motherly woman twice in the heart. Martha died almost instantly, barely having enough time for her face to register the shock and surprise as her body was pushed backwards by the force of the impacts. She crashed down behind the desk, as O'Leary circled it. Casually and cold-bloodedly, he shot her again in the head just to be sure. He then tucked the gun in his trousers and proceeded to check the reception computer.

"Second floor, Room 12," he said curtly.

Tommy nodded and drew out his own pistol, similarly equipped with a silencer. "Let's go."

---O---

Claire was a bit better now, or at least calming down, when the assassins walked to the door.

"I'm sorry," she apologized to Samantha as she dried her tears with a Kleenex offered by the nurse. "I feel so stupid right now."

The redhead managed a sympathetic smile. "It's okay, dear. I understand - hey, who are you guys?"

Frowning, the young Texan turned her head to the door. Two mean-looking men had materialized in the doorway. She felt her blood running cold. It was obvious that Samantha was surprised by the presence but not worried, in spite of their thug-like looks. She was, like any regular person was wont to do, just looking at their faces.

But Claire was the daughter of a secret agent, and one of the first things Noah Bennet had taught her in order to protect herself was to always look at the whole picture. She flickered her eyes from their faces to their feet and all the way back up in a second, drinking in every single detail of them in one swift sweep motion.

She noticed their right hands, hidden behind her backs and immediately turned to Samantha. "Hit the alarm!"

"What?!" the nurse looked at her like she was crazy.

Claire was already standing up, placing her body between the men and the most vulnerable victim in the room, Samantha. Life went suddenly into slow motion. She heard herself shouting again for the nurse to push the alarm, but it was like it was somebody else was screaming, from far away.

The strangers pulled their guns up and took aim. '_Not at me,' _Claire noticed. She got her backpack from the bed by its strap and slung it around, throwing it at the gunmen.

Adrenaline was rushing through her veins. Her heart was beating at 100 miles per hour. She was on fire, but focused like a gun's laser sight.

The backpack crashed against the gun of the shortest man, the one with the leather jacket and the tribal tattoo near his neck, and spoiled his aim as he fired. The taller one, though, didn't waver as he pulled the trigger.

There was a muffled sound, half-metallic, half-whisper. Claire felt the rush of air as the bullet zipped past her cheek, and instinctively turned her head around, her blonde curls whipping madly, just in time to see Samantha falling forward and away from her. A bloodstain was growing right in the center of her back.

The nurse crashed down on the little bedside table on which the alarm button was located, but Claire didn't wait for her body to settle down on the floor. She knew she only had a heartbeat of time before they went for her. She had to act, and fast.

Now, she had only two options, and both were dictated by the most basic of instincts, one that was common to all living creatures when facing danger: flight or fight.

The window was only two steps away. She was fairly sure she could reach it before the two armed men managed to grab or incapacitate her. It wouldn't be the first time she'd crashed through one or fallen off a building to escape a dangerous situation, and surely the fall from this second floor would hurt less than when she'd jumped out of Linderman's office in Kirby Plaza.

But then, if she did that, Claire would be abandoning Peter to these men's hands. She knew any kind of hurt they could inflict on him, she could heal by being physically close. But she had no idea of what would happen if she wasn't. Unlike her, Peter had to consciously call for his powers to act when he wasn't near their source, and in his current state there was no guarantee he could form any conscious thought at all.

Plus, Samantha could be dead, or she could be just wounded. And there were other people in the rest home that might be in danger. She couldn't abandon them to their own fate.

So, no flight. She would have to fight her way out of this.

Instead of turning to the window, Claire moved forward. The corner of the bed was between her and the men, and she leaned on it to prop herself forward and leap onto the two killers.

It was a crazy move, she just hoped its unpredictability would take the men by surprise. Amazing, she thought idly as she crossed the air, how she had just gone from weeping lovesick teen into fighting lioness in one second. If it wasn't because her reflection in the mirror never talked back to her, she would have believed she also had a deranged alter ego like Niki.

Claire fell onto the tall man while she raised her knees, slapping his armed hand away and crashing onto his chest. They flew into the outer hallway, the man fell to the floor on his back and the Texan girl's weight on his chest made him expel the air from his lungs in a pained explosion of breath.

She closed her tiny hand into a fist and slammed it onto the man's face with all her strength, not with a punch but using it like a mace. The assassin's nose broke, spurting blood down onto his mouth and chin and blinding him with pain and shock.

"Aw, fuck!!" was all that the former terrorist could scream as Claire rolled aside from him, over his extended arm, and tried to wrestle the pistol out of his hand.

Tommy was in complete shock. This was supposed to be a nice and easy job. This was supposed to be some airhead blonde cheerleader. What this was _not _supposed to be was bloody Buffy, the vampire Slayer!

The Irish thug turned around and aimed at the girl, he was about to pull the trigger when it dawned on him that the second part of the job was to deliver her alive. He couldn't risk wounding her too seriously, so instead of opening fire, he spun the pistol around on his finger and grabbed it by the barrel. Leaning over the struggling duo, Tommy traced an arc with the improvised blunt weapon and struck the blonde across the face with its butt.

Not dead, not even seriously wounded, but nobody had said the package had to be intact and functional.

Claire's jaw snapped with a loud crack and she found herself rolling away from the tall man. The Texan girl groaned as, standing on all fours, she brought a hand to her face and rotated her shattered jaw to put it into place. The man she had downed was pretty much doing the same, although she was willing to bet it hurt more to him.

Her powers, on top of the tissue regeneration, included a higher threshold of pain tolerance than a regular human. That meant that even though she felt the pain, it didn't bother Claire as much any other regular Joe.

She hadn't managed to take the pistol away from him, and O'Leary leveled it at her head. Shit, she would be of no use with her brain destroyed by a bullet. Claire remained still, waiting for the men to make the next move.

"Take care of this bitch," the man still standing told the other one. "I'll get rid of the vegetable."

Claire felt like fainting, but didn't let herself drown in fear. Of all the dirty little secrets she had – her feelings for Peter, her reading of his diaries, and more – there was one she was actually quite proud of.

One of the first things that Noah Bennet had done after the family had moved to New York, was to ensure that his daughter could defend herself in case the Company ever tried to make a move on her again. The fact that she was well nigh indestructible didn't mean she couldn't be incapacitated and taken away. Because her father couldn't just lock her up at home for the rest of her natural life, Bennet had sought to give her a set of tools that she could use to minimize the chances of something like that happening.

Claire had felt a little bit like she was attending spy school as her father had spent uncountable hours passing onto her his own experience and knowledge on counter-surveillance and evasion techniques. And the coolness factor had hit the ceiling on the day he had told her that, now that she knew how to identify a threat and escape from it, she needed to learn how to face such a threat if running away was not an option.

D.L. had taught her how to properly use a gun. She had trained in self-defense with Niki, learning stuff like Israeli Krav Maga and Korean Hapkido. Martial arts that were fought up close and personal and where she could use her smaller frame and shorter reach, and be vicious enough to incapacitate an aggressor with a couple of well-placed strikes.

Of course Claire hadn't turned into some one-cheerleader-army or anything like that, she was far from being Jet Li with pom-poms…_yet_. But she was no longer a defenseless little girl, although she took advantage of other people perceiving her like that.

Like now.

Claire made her face into a mask and raised her hands in surrender as the taller thug stood up and advanced on her. With fake tears she pleaded with fake fear, "No please, I'm sorry. I didn't mean it, please don't hurt me!"

"You goddamn little whore," O'Leary grabbed her by the hair and yanked at it to force her to stand up. "I'm going to make you pay for this!"

Clenching her fists, the Texan shot them out at once and punched the man in his throat. His Adam's apple crushed, O'Leary released her by instinct to hold his own neck and the blonde took the opportunity to brutally kick him in the groin. The former terrorist bent over with a whine and she grabbed him by the collar of his jacket. Using his own momentum, Claire pulled with all her strength and made Patrick O'Leary crash face-first into the doorframe.

The former terrorist fell down to his knees, losing his grip on the gun, and Claire finally took hold of it. Like she had been taught, she quickly checked the safety and the hammer and lost no time in bursting back into the room.

Peter continued sitting on the wheelchair, like the living dead. The other killer was standing right in front of him, between the young Petrelli and the window, his handgun leveled at the boy's head.

Everything happened very fast. Claire brought her stolen pistol up, feeling it heavy and cold in her petite hand. She didn't hesitate, the paper targets with which she'd practiced didn't bleed.

But O'Leary had recovered quicker than she expected, and he leaped in right after her. The lanky man tackled her just as she pulled the trigger and the shot went too high, missing the mark by just two inches.

The man crushed her onto the floor, one knee on her stomach, and slapped the gun away from her hand. Claire tried to fight back, but with no space to move, she was at the mercy of the man's superior strength. He punched her in the face with rage, nearly rendering her unconscious, and then wrapped her throat with one hand.

As he choked her, O'Leary looked at his partner in crime over his shoulder, "Kill him already, Tommy. And let's get the fuck outta here!"

Claire's stomach flipped painfully, and not just because of the pressure exerted by the man on top of her. She couldn't do anything as the assassin in the leather jacket aimed again at Peter and, from less than five inches away, pulled the trigger of his pistol. All she could do was scream, "PETER!!!"

---O---

_It is getting dark, way too quickly._

_Peter feels the darkness approaching, a shadow falling on this land of dreams without mercy. He sees it devouring the sand and the ocean, obliterating them from existence, and turns around as his lifts his eyes to the sun. _

_He isn't expecting to see an eclipse. _

"_Time's up," Charles says. "You have to go back."_

"_But…" He is still ruled by his insecurities, doubting even the power of his feelings._

"_No 'buts' anymore, Peter," the older man says. "It's time to either put up or shut up. It's time to face the storm."_

_Peter stops looking at his friend to once again gaze at the sun. It's half covered now. A sense of absolute dread creeps over him and his heart once more goes from trot to gallop. _

_Claire. She is in danger. He can feel it, although – like so many other things about his niece – he can't explain how he knows it. He just does. It's their connection, still strong even through time, space and the dimension of the soul. _

"_How do I do it?" he asks, suddenly in a hurry to get away from here. To go back to Claire. "How do I go back?"_

_Charles' smile is a knowing one. "Click your heels three times and say 'there's no place like home'?"_

_The boy in white has to make an effort not to tell him off. His older friend can't help laughing. "C'mon, Peter, you have to make an effort here. I can't simply give you all the answers."_

"_All the answers?" he growls to himself, turning away from him again. Has he actually given any, or simply just raised more questions? He faces the sun, which is three quarters covered in darkness now._

_Claire. He has to get to Claire._

_And Claire...is the sun._

_Peter falls to one knee and forces himself to remember Nathan. Pride and pain become bundled into one, filling his mouth and his heart with the bittersweet memories of his brother. The sand ripples around him and all of a sudden he rockets into the air, leaving a trail of condensed steam in his wake and quickly getting lost from sight._

_Charles follows him with his eyes for a few seconds, until he is so far away he is not even a little point in the sky. Smiling, he recovers his fishing cane and relaxes back into his reclining chair. He hums, "We have all the time in the world…"_

_The boy in white flies up into the sky. Fast. Faster… _

_His dark eyes are set on the eclipsing sun, watching it grow larger and larger as it becomes darker and darker. In this dimension of dreams and memories nothing is as it should be, and soon he is so close that it's only darkness he sees._

_A circle of darkness, and nothing else._

---O---

A circle of darkness, and nothing else.

Then an explosion in its very core, and a big lump of metal moving forward, pushed by the expanding gases of the conflagration. Spinning around, advancing towards him. 185 grains of lead and steel becoming larger and larger, until they engulfed all that was the world.

Time slowed down, as if everything that moved did so through quicksand. The bullet left the barrel of Tommy's Beretta and made its way towards Peter's forehead inch by agonizing inch.

Five inches. Four inches. Three. Two…

The projectile stopped mid-air. Time resumed its normal pace. But the bullet stood still, deprived of all kinetic energy.

And so did the four people in the room. Three of them could move, but they were too astonished to do so. Tommy and O'Leary could simply not process what was happening, it was an event too alien to their limited world-view for any sort of comprehension.

Claire Bennet was too scared to move. Scared not of the men with the guns, but afraid that if she moved, if she said anything, the spell would be broken, and the hope she felt growing within her chest would be washed away by a wave of cold harsh reality.

"What the fuck-?" the thug in the leather jacket frowned, his gun hand falling at his side as he reached for the immobile bullet with his other.

He yelped in pain when his fingers brushed the still hot metal, but he had no trouble retrieving the projectile. Tommy bounced it on the palm of his hand until it cooled down enough for him to hold it without getting burnt. He examined it for a couple of seconds, but couldn't see anything out of the ordinary with the metal slug. He turned to his partner with a puzzled expression in his face.

O'Leary turned back to Claire, who he was still pinning down onto the ground, and aimed right at her face with his weapon. The blonde was smiling from ear to ear, with a '_oh boy, you're so deep in shit' _grin. "Knock it off. You have five seconds to tell me what's going on here before I blow your pretty brains out, lass."

"That's funny, 'cause you have only three seconds to let her go before I rip yours out," said a raspy male voice from behind him.

O'Leary's head whipped around towards the source of the sound and Tommy's went up to stare back at the young man in the wheelchair. He was still in the same position as before, not having moved a hair's length. But his eyes… His dark eyes, which were lost and vacant mere seconds ago, were now gazing straight at him.

And his lips, they were forming a crooked smile full of mischievousness. The same almost evil mischief that pearled his voice when Peter said to him, "_Boo._"

Gunn raised the pistol again. It wasn't exactly the smartest action of his life.

It was as if a giant invisible sledgehammer had hit Tommy all over his body at once. He was shot backwards, bones snapping everywhere until he crashed through the window. The TK blow impacted against the entirety of the wall like a tsunami, blowing it outwards into a fireless explosion of brick and mortar. A second later, there simply was no wall and Tommy's corpse landed with a dull thud on the ground outside, large chunks of concrete raining around and onto him.

Speechless, O'Leary moved his pistol away from Claire's face to aim at the no-longer-catatonic young man as he smoothly stood up from his wheelchair, with a grace that belied the fact he had just spent more than two years without moving a muscle. "Hold it right there, you son of a-"

"Time's up," Peter growled, sweeping the air with his hand and making the pistol fly away from the assassin's hand. He then shot his other hand forward and the Irish killer found himself flying up from the ground and away from the blonde girl until he painfully crashed into the ceiling and remained pinned there.

Claire rushed to her feet so fast that she felt lightheaded. Or maybe the rush of blood to her head was caused by very different reasons, by the fact that she was witnessing a miracle, by the fact that her hope wasn't being swept aside by reality, but rather _becoming_ reality.

"PETER!" she shouted again, but this time with joy instead of fear. The young Texan rushed to her uncle and enveloped him in such a huge bear-hug that he was about to fall. "Peter! Peter! Peter! PeterPeterPeter…"

She just couldn't stop repeating his name over and over. She couldn't stop holding him, didn't want to let him go for fear he would vanish if she did. Claire just wanted to embrace him so strongly that he would sink under her skin.

But he was not hugging her back, she realized. Peter was stiff-backed, she noticed when the shock and wonder of his sudden recovery started to fade away. And he felt cold, as if there was nothing but ice underneath his dressing gown and pajamas.

Feeling her smile disappear, Claire took a step back. He wasn't even looking at her. Actually, Peter seemed completely oblivious to her presence. His eyes were only focused on the assassin pinned to the ceiling like an overgrown butterfly. And they were eyes full of hatred, so intense they didn't seem to be his.

Claire had seen those eyes before, but in a different man. In a man full of hate and madness.

"Peter…" she whispered, her hands leaning on his narrow hips.

"Time's up," Petrelli repeated again, ignoring her. He then did something that turned her blood into a river of glacial water.

Peter raised his right hand, the index finger fully extended and aimed at the man's head. Mechanically, he said for the third time, "Time's up."

He slowly started to move his finger from left to right and a bleeding gash begun to form on O'Leary's forehead, mirroring the motion of Peter's index. The former terrorist screamed at top of his lungs, the pain unbearable as he was scalped alive.

"PETER!!" Claire roared after shaking herself of the stupor caused by her uncle's actions. "What are you doing?! Peter!!"

The petite Texan yanked at his arm and forced him to look down at her. Claire commanded with all the strength she could summon, "Peter, damn it, listen to me! STOP! What the hell are you doing?"

Petrelli shuddered and blinked as his sight cleared up and focused. He seemed to be coming out of a spell and a bit drowsy as he shook his head. It was like he was seeing her for the first time. "Claire? Is that you?"

His knees buckled and the blonde girl had to support him so he wouldn't end up on the floor. His concentration gone, O'Leary fell off the ceiling and crashed down, moaning in pain but still alive.

"Oh Peter," Miss Bennet finally allowed herself to smile again, cradling his face. "Are you alright?"

"Claire…" he managed a weak grin. "Where am I? What's going on?"

"You're safe now, okay? You're with me, I won't leave you alone." She looked around. The tall Irishman looked like he wasn't going to be any sort of threat for the moment, and the other one…well, the Texan woman didn't think that guy would be a threat to anyone else, ever again.

But Samantha was lying on the floor, deadly quiet. "C'mon, Peter, stay with me, alright? Don't let go."

The young man only groaned unintelligibly as she helped him to the bed, half dragging him, half letting him support himself on her. It was like all that strength he had made a show of when getting up from the wheelchair had been siphoned away.

Maybe by the use of his powers. Or maybe because of something entirely different.

Claire let him rest on the bed and quickly rushed to the nurse's side. The bloodstain had extended all over her back and, when the petite Texan turned her around, she felt a chill down her spine. Her pupils were rolled up into her eye sockets and a thin line of blood flowed out of the corner of her mouth. She checked the pulse on Samantha's jugular, but wasn't surprised when she didn't find one.

Closing Samantha's eyes, Claire swallowed the lump in her throat. Like before, it was her father's voice in the back of her brain that set her in motion. She would have time for guilt trips later, now there was only space for one line of thought: survival.

She stood up and returned to Peter's side. He was on the verge of unconsciousness. "No, no, no…don't fall asleep. Stay with me," she cupped his jawline with her tiny hands and made him look into her green eyes, scared that he would fall back into his catatonic state. "Peter, listen to my voice, okay? You have to stay awake. You have to hold on!"

"I'm tired…" he yawned. "Everything's so confusing…the beach…Charles…"

'_What?' _Claire thought, but didn't ask it aloud. It was pretty obvious that Peter was very confused and she didn't want to upset him anymore than she had to. There would be time for that later.

"Yeah, right, the beach," she grunted, lifting him from the bed and wrapping one of his arms around her neck so he could lean on her. "We'll go to the beach later, okay? We'll swim and sunbathe, I'll even help you build a sandcastle."

"Claire?" he groggily asked.

"Yeah?"

"You're talking nonsense."

The Texan couldn't help but chuckle as both of them stumbled more than walked around the bed and towards the door. Neither of them saw O'Leary crawling on the floor and regaining his pistol.

The former IRA activist was so enraged that he couldn't see straight. And the fact that he had a bleeding three-inch gash on his forehead was not helping at all. He couldn't care about the contract job anymore, he just felt hurt and humiliated and wanted payback.

O'Leary lifted the 9mm with shaky hands and, half blinded as he was, aimed at the bulk of the two figures retreating from the room. He pulled the trigger twice and sent to silent bullets into the air that impacted against Claire's back and pushed her forward like she had just been kicked by a mule.

The uncle-niece duo went tumbling into the hallway, the Texan's lungs on fire as she breathed her own blood. "Claire!" Peter yelled, his arms tightening on her so she wouldn't fall.

"I'm alright!" she choked and coughed, red foam forming in her lips. "Let's just get outta here!"

Claire hated bullet wounds. Hated the burning stab of the entry, the uncomfortable sensation of the metal slugs inside her body as this one fought to expel them away. Above all, she hated to have been so stupid as to believe the other killer was no longer a menace just because he was wounded. Her father had taught her better than that.

They stumbled their way down the corridor, Claire leaning with one hand on the wall, leaving a red imprint wherever her fingers touched the plaster, Peter doing a great impression of a drunk epileptic as he held onto her with the little strength he could summon from within himself.

"We need to call…the cops, somebody. You need a hospital," he said worriedly.

"No…" she grunted. One of the bullets was lodged inside her right lung and she could feel it moving towards her breathing channels as the wound sealed up by itself and the lung re-inflated. "Don't worry about me…I'm…indestructible, remember?"

O'Leary came out of the room, his feet no faster than theirs, his hand uselessly wiping off the blood pouring down his face and onto his eyes. There were too many blood vessels in the head, and he was bleeding too copiously for him to clear up his eyes. He squeezed a couple more shots in the general direction of their voices but he missed this time.

Peter's head was a whirlwind. He remembered only fragments, like his recent memory was a mirror and somebody had smashed it with a hammer. Everything was there, but mixed up and overlapped. He wasn't sure what was real and what was a dream.

But Claire was real, in his arms. Stronger even after being shot than he had ever felt. And he was drained. Oh God, so tired.

The escaping duo reached the top of the staircase leading down to the first floor, O'Leary barely meters away from them. The assassin roared gutturally as he fired again. This time, Peter's shoulder exploded into a thin cloud of blood and bone fragments, the sheer force of the impact making the both of them spin around by 180 degrees.

They were facing the Irish killer and losing their equilibrium at the same time, about to fall backwards down the stairs. Peter's mind was screaming in pain. His power mimicry apparently could mirror Claire's tissue regeneration, but her high tolerance to agony was something that was beyond its ability. His instinct kicked in and he tapped into his telekinesis, pushing the Irishman away and sending him flying backwards.

They fell.

His arms wrapped around Claire's petite frame. Peter closed his eyes and breathed in. He heard her calling his name.

There was no impact. The young man dared to open an eye and he saw they were floating, gently moving down the stairs until they were on the ground level and he allowed them to safely regain their footing. Peter was still holding Claire so tight she was probably having trouble to breathe.

Peter dared to loosen his grip on his niece and looked down at her. The Texan's green eyes were so big and amazed that she seemed like an anime character. "Oh…wow."

Peter couldn't help to smile. Wow, indeed.

"Let's move," Claire added, fully healed and hearing the footsteps of the assassin upstairs. There was also the noise of people coming out of their rooms and asking what was going on, and she didn't want any more innocents getting caught in the crossfire. She grabbed Peter's hand and practically dragged him towards the exit. "My car's outside."

"Your car?" he inquired, puzzled. "You drive now?"

It had gotten dark outside. The belt of his dressing gown had loosened and the clothing flapped behind him as they ran on the gravel of the entryway towards Claire's parked Volkswagen.

"Drive?" Miss Bennet asked rhetorically, as she extracted the keys from her pocket and opened the door. "Nah, I _race._"

In spite of the situation, Peter found himself releasing a dry bark of a laugh. He circled the car, leaning on the hood for support, and went to the passenger's side. The door was stuck.

Cursing, the blonde leaned over the seat to open it from inside. Yet another kink from the moody Rabbit. "Sorry about that," she apologized while Peter got inside and she started the car. "Been meaning to fix it for ages."

Claire's side window exploded and shattered glass rained over her. The assassin was running out of the house, wildly firing his pistol. "Fuck! Mind my car, you asshole!" she angrily shouted at the man, as she slammed her foot on the gas.

The yellow Rabbit roared – as much as its tiny four-cylinder engine allowed it to, anyway – and the front wheels spun on the gravel until they gained traction and propelled the car forward with a bone-shaking jerk. O'Leary was running towards them and managed to get in their way as he continued firing his pistol until the clip was depleted.

The windshield didn't shatter like the window had, but the impacts of the subsonic bullets traced large spider-webs on its surface, blocking Claire's view.

"I can't see!" she screamed, as she gunned the car towards the exit gate. She was about to run over the assassin but he rolled aside, dodging the oncoming Volkswagen by mere millimeters.

Peter punched the glass with his bare fist, ripping it off its frame and clearing the Texan girl's line of sight. She changed gears up and drove out of the entry gate and into the road. The car spun so hard as she changed directions that the broken fragments of glass went flying and rained down on the tarmac into a smooth arc.

O'Leary was already up and running, releasing the empty clip of his Beretta and driving a fresh one into the pistol's grip without slowing his pace. He only managed to squeeze a couple of shots before the yellow Rabbit was on the open road and driving away.

By the time he did the same, his backup had already realized something was not going according to plan and they had pulled out Tommy's Cadillac from its parking space. The large sedan rushed to the entrance of the rest home, the passenger's side door opening even before it stopped. The Irishman dived inside and the car jerked forward, its Northstar V8 engine pushing its 4000-pound body like it weighed nothing.

"Get that bitch!" O'Leary roared at the driver. "Run her off the road!"

"What the hell's going on here?!" Peter screamed inside the chased yellow car.

"You asking me?" Claire looked at the Cadillac, getting dangerously closer in her rearview mirror. "Fifteen minutes ago you were in a coma, and now you're up and we're in the middle of a fucking Jason Bourne movie!!"

"What's with the cursing?" Peter admonished her. "Don't make me wash your mouth out with soap!"

The blonde Texan gave him a stare as if he had lost his mind.

---O---

They'd seen the side of the building exploding outwards with no more noise than the one of concrete breaking and crashing down, and known that things were not exactly going to plan.

They saw the Volkswagen driving out of the parking area, wildly swerving as it went into the regular road. They saw O'Leary running after it pistol in hand and then jumping into the silver Cadillac to give chase. And they knew it was all going to shit.

Ditko started the engine of the Charger while Cockrum put voice to his thoughts on the matter.

"Well, fuck."

---O---

The Caddy only needed the length of the street before it caught up with the Rabbit. Its forward bumper made contact with the yellow car's rear and slammed it ahead, disfiguring the rear end like it was made of paper instead of sheet metal.

Claire had to fight with the steering wheel as the Rabbit jerked and went sideways, so it wouldn't completely turn around. The wheels skidded against the road, the car positioned diagonally with respect to its motion, and the blonde girl counter-maneuvered with one hand as she geared down with the other and slammed down on the gas.

This was not something she had been taught, but something she was, surprisingly, quite natural and adept at. Claire just loved cars.

The German car shook like it was being rocked by strong crosswinds, but it quickly regained its straight forward direction. In the rearview mirror, the Cadillac had lost some ground. Its left headlight was smashed and the large sedan seemed like a Cyclops stalking its tiny defenseless prey. Claire knew it wouldn't be long until the killers would catch up again with them.

"We have to do something," Peter said, pointing the obvious.

"Hold on," the Texan girl calculated the distance and the speed, one eye on the mirror, the other on the road. She placed her hand on the handbrake and waited until the silver sedan was almost upon them again.

Then, Claire slammed on the clutch as she pulled at the lever while wildly spinning the wheel. The Volkswagen spun 180 degrees into a tight skid and missed the ramming Cadillac by mere inches. Claire stepped on the gas and forced the Rabbit to go forward at the top of its speed. Behind them, the silver sedan was already turning around.

"That'll give us a few seconds, but there's no way we can outrun them in this car," she said, darting a look at her uncle. She noticed Peter staring at her with eyes as wide as saucers. "What?"

"Nothing," he croaked in a high-pitch tone. "I was just trying to remind myself that the family name is Petrelli, not Andretti."

Claire was about to giggle, but her laughter was cut short as the car started to be hit by automatic gunfire. Behind them, O'Leary had his arm out of the window and was firing his pistol as fast as he could while from the backseat, the second of his two-man backup crew did the same with a compact Czech-made Skorpion submachine-gun.

Bringing his head down instinctively, Peter tried to think what to do. Claire was swerving the car from side to side of the road, thanking God for the lack of heavy traffic, and doing as many dodges as she could to keep a decent distance and give the enemy the least possible target to aim at. She told him, her head equally as downcast as his, "If they hit a wheel, we're as good as gone. We need to do something!"

The young Petrelli looked over his shoulder and through the ripped plastic rear window. He took a deep breath and made a decision. Reaching up, he started manipulating the canvas roof. "How do you open this thing?"

"You can't, it's stuck!"

Peter frowned at his niece. "Does anything actually work in this piece of junk?"

"Hey, don't diss my car, alright?" Claire angrily shot back. "It's kept us alive so far, hasn't it? Shut up and do something to help!!"

"Fine," he grunted, once more tapping into his telekinesis to rip the roof hatch from its attachments.

As soon as the rusty bindings went off, the force of the wind did the rest and the whole canvas top was completely ripped off from the bodywork and flying away. "What are you doing?" Claire screamed as he jumped into the backseat.

"I'm doing _something_!" Peter yelled back over the howl of the wind and the blast of the gunfire as he dodged the roll bar and leaned one foot on the rear side of the damaged bodywork.

The young man clenched his teeth and then jumped up into the air. Claire saw him through the rear view mirror and couldn't help but to turn her head around.

A-_friggin'_-mazing.

Peter was not flying as much as he was _floating _in the air, suspended by invisible wires with his dressing gown flapping behind him like a cape. He let the Rabbit move away and waited only one second until the Cadillac was about to pass underneath his levitating body. He then plunged down, at the same time he remembered the blonde woman back in Kirby Plaza, the one who so effortlessly had ripped the parking meter from Sylar's hand and used it to beat him up.

He crashed down head-first against the sedan's windshield like a meteor, effortlessly shattering reinforced glass and bending metal as he went through it.

The Cadillac's driver lost all control of the vehicle and wildly swerved to the side, colliding with the row of parked cars by the sidewalk. The sedan's nose caught the rear end of a station wagon at nearly 80 miles per hour and flipped along its longitudinal axis, taking off as it spun around before finally landing down on its roof.

Metal smashed and bent with an animalistic shriek and glass went flying everywhere. Sparks rained as the sharp edges scratched against the pavement, while the car slid to a halt. Claire braked hard and her tiny Rabbit skidded for a couple of meters before halting as well. She had to wait for a few seconds and breathe deeply until her heart calmed down enough for her to do anything without suffering a massive stroke.

Putting the car in reverse, Claire drove back to the upside-down Cadillac and quickly got out of her Rabbit. "Peter?!" she called for her uncle as she knelt down by the driver's side window. "Are you there? Peter?"

Inside the car, everything was a mess of tangled bodies and blood-tainted broken glasses. It was too dark to see anything clearly. Weakly as she peered inside on all fours, she called again, "Peter?"

A bloodied hand shot from the darkness and grabbed her wrist. She couldn't help but to unleash a little yelp of surprise.

"C'mon, don't be such a scream queen and help me outta here."

Claire sighed with relief and held Peter's hand with both of hers. Yanking at his arm, she helped her uncle crawl out the crashed car. "That was the most stupid thing I've ever seen."

"But it was cool as hell, wasn't it?" Peter grinned weakly. His face was covered in bruises and cuts, and there was so much blood on his skin that there were barely any clean patches left at all.

The Texan girl helped him to his feet, noticing how his other arm hung limply at his side and the way in which his right leg awkwardly bent in two different places where there were no bone joints. He groaned as the wounds started to knit themselves and the fractures rearranged and healed.

She helped limp towards the smashed Rabbit, whose engine was still idly running. "What about those guys? Are they…you know…"

"Dead?" he shook his head. "Unconscious, I think. But I hope you don't mind if we don't stick around until they wake up."

"Not at all," she agreed, easing him into the passenger's seat. "We'll call the police from home."

Home? That sounded pretty good, but Peter had no idea right now where that was.

"Don't you have a cell phone?" he asked as she drove away. Adrenaline was finally ceasing to pump through his system, and once again Petrelli started to feel groggy. "I thought kids nowadays were genetically engineered not to walk around without one."

Claire let the 'kids' wisecrack pass because he obviously had knocked his head pretty badly. "I have one in my backpack. Which happens to be back in the rest home."

"Great timing," he chuckled.

They remained in silence for the next couple of minutes while Claire drove the stuttering Volkswagen towards her parents' home. Out of the blue, Peter turned to her and with a soft smile said, "Hey, thank you."

"What for?" she gave him her trademark small and sly grin.

"You know. For saving me again and all that."

Claire nodded, her eyes going back to the road. "You're welcome."

After another whole minute, which he spent looking at her profile, seeing how her face had definitely matured without losing any of her fresh young beauty, Peter frowned. "Well?"

"Well what?"

"I saved you too. Couple of times, to be exact."

The blonde arched a perfectly sculpted eyebrow. "You think that's impressive? Please, Peter, I go through stuff like this every day."

"You're joking." At her deadpan expression, the young Petrelli's brow shot up. "Oh, my God. You've gone and done it, haven't you? You've become a real-life version of a comic superhero. Do you have a costume, or a superhero name?"

She couldn't resist his childish excitement and burst out laughing. Peter's eyes became slits and he had to make an effort not to tell her off. "Ha, ha, very funny. Must be amusing making your old sick uncle look like a moron."

Shaking her head - and trying not to think about the words 'sick' and 'uncle' - Claire just reached for his hand with her right one. Peter didn't resist her touch and his fingers interlaced with hers naturally, resting on his lap.

"Thank you," she finally whispered softly, no trace of humor in her voice now. Only something deep and meaningful that neither she herself nor Peter dared to examine too closely.

He smiled too, finally looking forwards through the non-existent windshield. "You're welcome."

Absent-mindedly, just by pure custom, Petrelli moved his right hand to brush his hair. He frowned, puzzled.

"Claire?"

"Yeah?"

"What happened to my hair?"

---O---

O'Leary was slowly coming back to his senses, still fighting nausea and the cobwebs of unconsciousness when he heard the car stopping nearby and the sound of a door opening.

He was still too confused about what had just happened. Half, or maybe three quarters of what he had just witnessed over the last few minutes was simply too incredible to believe. Maybe he was just waking up in his bed and it had all been a dream. That made more sense than reality, anyway.

The sounds of shoes stepping onto broken glass made him turn his head towards the smashed window at his side. The world was upside down outside and he was in an awkward position. The driver's body was half inside the car, half fallen through the windscreen. He could hear moans in the back seat, coming from the second man in his crew.

A face appeared in the side window. A young man, in a black suit. He examined the interior of the crashed car and whistled. "Dude, you've gone though some serious shit here."

O'Leary grunted. "Help me, please."

"Don't worry, man," Cockrum grinned. "We're here to help. You alright? Anything broken?"

"My legs," the Irishman grunted through clenched teeth. "I think I broke 'em both."

The young man nodded, seemingly considering what to do. "Alright, I'll tell you what we'll do. I'll call for an ambulance, okay? And meanwhile, I'll give you something for the pain."

"Whatever…"

Cockrum stood up and, from the pocket of his jacket, took out a pineapple-shaped M61 hand grenade. He pulled the safety pin out and kneeling down again, smiled at the Irishman. "There you go, pal. This will make you feel all better."

The man in black tossed the explosive device into the rear area of the car - its safety handle flying away as it left his hand - and he stood up again.

O'Leary started screaming as the man walked away. "No, wait. NO!! NOOOO!!!"

He was still yelling for help as Cockrum sat down inside the Charger and Ditko drove it away. The older man in black had a cell phone in his ear and was talking into it. "Yes, sir. I'm afraid the first retrieval attempt was a complete failure…I understand that, sir, but if you'll recall I warned you…no, of course not…"

The Cadillac exploded behind them, leaping several feet into the air as a big fireball enveloped it before it crashed down again. Neither man in the unmarked Charger flinched or even looked back at it.

Ditko sighed, tired. "Yes, sir. Proceeding with the alternate plan as ordered."

---O---

_To be continued…_


	5. Chapter Four: Stranger in my Bed

**Chapter Four****: Stranger in my Bed**

_Fear and panic in the air  
I want to be free  
From desolation and despair  
And I feel like everything I saw  
Is being swept away  
When I refuse to let you go_

"_Map of the problematique," Muse_

**Long Island, New York  
May 2009**

This was a night of miracles and wonders. One of them – in Peter's opinion, maybe not the smallest one – was that Claire's tiny Rabbit soldiered on in spite of its lamentable state. That the police hadn't pulled them over yet was probably another miracle. The bodywork was completely ruined, especially on the rear end, and generously bullet-ridden all over. The roof was gone, and so was the windshield. And yet the yellow car kept going.

The wind howled and made Claire's long blonde hair flow in a golden cloud around her head. She looked forward, a determined expression on her face. Eyes slit, nose wrinkled, pouty mouth transformed into a thin line.

Peter thought she looked adorable. But then he was feeling pretty delirious right now, so he couldn't really trust his own judgment at this point. He didn't really understand what was going on; it was like he had gone to the toilet in the middle of a movie, and upon his return, the plot had like completely left the country. The characters were the same, but they were singing a way different tune.

He had a vague recollection of being at a beach, and being told something important. But it was like he had woken up from a dream, and the details were so hazy that they just slipped between his fingers when he tried to grasp them.

Nothing made much sense.

"Are you okay?" Claire asked him, darting a look at her uncle for a second before returning her attention to the road.

'_Do I look like I'm okay?'_ Peter wondered rather bitterly. He surely didn't feel like it, but he just said, "Yeah, peachy."

The Texan nodded, and whispered, "Liar."

Peter chuckled, but his laughter turned into a cough.

Claire darted another look at him, this time a worried one. He made her think of the time she had visited him in jail back in Odessa, after he'd saved her from Sylar that night. Only his gauntness and short hair now added to his pale sweatiness to accentuate his sickly looks, even more than back then. The blonde reached out for him with her right hand and touched his forehead with its back.

"You're feverish," she said, unable to hide her worry.

"I'm alright," Peter shook his head, trying not to think about how soft and wonderfully cool her hand felt against his skin, and how much he missed the contact when she took it away. Yeah, fever, that had to be it. "I just need to rest a little, and I'll be fine."

The blonde girl shut up about the fact that he shouldn't be sick, not as long as he was close to her. She couldn't remember ever having caught a cold or been sick herself ever since her power had manifested. And she wasn't sure resting was the best idea, either. God knew how he had 'rested' for long enough.

"Do you remember anything?" the young woman asked, deciding to keep him awake. "I mean, after Sylar and the explosion?"

Bile rose to Peter's throat at the memory. It might have been a long time since that night for Claire; but for him, it had just happened barely a few hours ago. He could still hear Nathan telling him he loved him before he flew Sylar up into the night sky.

The young Petrelli male shook his head in response to Claire's question. "Not really, it's like I've been dreaming. How…how long…?"

She licked her lips, but didn't answer. Her eagerness to start a conversation was suddenly gone. Seeing this Petrelli pressed her, "Claire?"

"I, ah, I'm not really sure…maybe you're right and you should rest a little before…."

This time it was Peter who reached out for her, capturing her hand as it rested on the knob of the gear change lever. "Claire, please."

"Two years," she said bluntly, feeling like crying again. "Almost two and a half."

Claire would have sworn that it was impossible for him to go paler, but at seeing his reaction, she realized she'd been wrong. With a small pained voice, Peter requested, "Please, stop the car."

"Peter, we're in the middle of the highway-"

"Claire! Pull over!"

His niece pulled over and stopped in the emergency lane. The other cars honked in annoyance, but both driver and passenger paid them no mind. The Rabbit hadn't fully stopped, and Peter had already opened the door and was getting out. His body was shaken by nausea and his stomach doing somersaults as it tried to get rid of a content that wasn't even there. He fell to his knees, spitting acidic bile and saliva.

'_Two years! Two and a half fucking years?!'_

What had he done? For the love of God, what had he done?

It wasn't until he felt Claire's hand rubbing his back in soothing circles that Peter realized she had gotten out of the car too and moved to his side. It wasn't until he heard her whisper that his body stilled and he started breathing regularly. "It's okay, Peter. It's okay…"

How the young man wished he could believe her. He wiped his lips with the sleeve of his dressing gown, "I'm sorry, I just…I was just surprised, I guess."

Claire offered him a small bottle of water and Peter accepted it gratefully, taking a swig from it to wash his mouth out. After spitting it out, he frowned, "Where did you get this?"

"Glove compartment," she shrugged. "Always have one around, just in case."

"Just in case of what?" Peter stood up, towering over her. Petrelli handed the bottle back to her and their fingers interlaced over the plastic container. She didn't make any effort to get him off, and he didn't try to let her go. Peter suddenly gained a crooked smile, "Wait, this is a Texan thing, isn't it? You always have a bottle of water with you just in case your car breaks down in the middle of the desert."

"Are you reading my mind?" Claire asked, suspicious.

Peter shook his head. He just thought it was cute. "You know we don't have deserts in New York, don't you?"

"You've obviously never been stuck in the FDR in the middle of rush hour," Claire finally yanked her hand back. "I bet you were always chauffeured around in a big limo as a kid, with a cooler and soft drinks. Right, rich boy?"

"Nah. I was flown everywhere in helicopter. Limos are for the new rich and people without taste. Petrellis are old money and class, baby."

"Yeah, you looked very classy puking your guts onto the ground a couple of minutes ago, _baby._"

Claire arched her eyebrows at him playfully and Peter nodded. _"Touché._"

They returned to the car, now both smiling. The Texan asked before putting the car back into gear, "Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah, thanks," Peter tried to sound as sincere as he could. He _did _feel better, thanks to her, but he was far from feeling _well. _Claire resumed the drive towards Queens, and Peter tried to relax in his seat, which was difficult because a) his inner mental struggles, and b) the fact that he was covered in dried blood and it was starting to itch. "I need a shower."

"We both need one," she sighed. The idea of _sharing_ one with the man sitting alongside her flashed briefly though her mind, but unlike other times Claire had no problem pushing it away. She was too tired and definitely not in the mood. "We're pretty messy. I hate being shot."

"Does it happen to you often?"

"Just a few times, but who keeps count? It's never funny, though."

Peter ran a hand through his sweaty hair. He couldn't get used to how short it was. "So, bring me up to date on the last two years. You live here now? I thought you'd have gone back to Texas."

The once male nurse though that the brief stare that his niece flashed at him had been a hurt one, but he wasn't sure. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, everything's okay…well, apart from the obvious. Assassins and all." There it was: the sad little smile.

There _was _something wrong. "Claire…come on. You know you can tell me anything."

_ No, I can't, _ she thought. Not everything. She shrugged, "It's just…I've been coming to see you two or three times a week, and I've been keeping you updated on just about everything. I just thought…I don't know. Guess I kinda hoped that you could actually hear me all that time."

Claire felt awful after the words left her mouth. She had the impression they made her sound selfish, like Peter's return was a disappointment, when it was anything but that. Truth be told, she couldn't feel more ecstatic about having him back than she already did.

Confused too, and a bit scared, but happy above everything else.

"I'm sorry," she apologized. "That kinda makes me sound like a spoiled brat, huh?"

Peter was too slack-jawed to answer in any comprehensible way. She had been visiting him two or more times a week for the _last two and a half years!? _Or close enough? Why would she do that? Why would anyone do that?

At a loss for words, he could just muster a polite, "Thank you." It didn't sound very enthusiastic.

"It's alright," Claire shrugged again. "It's nothing any niece wouldn't do for her uncle, right?"

"No, actually I think, it's…" Peter wasn't sure what to say. Or, better said, he wasn't sure _how_ to say what he wanted. "It's definitely _something._ A something that really means a lot to me."

Claire added nothing. She just gave him another darting look and a new Mona Lisa smile. They rode in silence for the rest of the trip.

---O---

It was nearly ten o'clock when they finally arrived at the Bennet residence. The house lights were off and the old Volvo station wagon belonging to Claire's mom was missing from the driveway. The young woman recalled something Sandra Bennet had told her that very morning during breakfast, about having dinner with some friends from the PTA and Lyle was supposed to be babysitting Micah and Molly at the Hawkins' because D.L. and Niki had to work that night. Dad was still in Wisconsin with Mohinder, so she and Peter had the house to themselves for now.

Oh, joy. Well, at least they could clean up without freaking anyone out.

Claire killed the engine of her car and it stuttered to a halt, but didn't remain completely silent. It hissed and clinked as it cooled off and made a lot of other mechanical noises that the young woman wasn't sure were normal. She had the impression this had been her little darling Rabbit's last ride. But boy, it had been a hell of a one.

Peter was half-awake, half-dozing off and he needed a couple of seconds to realize they had arrived at their destination already. He heard the engine's noises too, but as he returned to his senses, he thought there was some non-mechanical sound added to the mix as well. It took him the good part of a minute to notice that Claire wasn't making any effort to get out of the car and that it was she who was making the strange noise. She was…clearing her throat?

"Are you alright?" he asked.

She simply raised one finger, requesting for a moment, and continued making the strange sound. Then she convulsed a few times, as if heaving, and Peter frowned deeply. "Claire - if you cough out a fur ball now, I'm officially gonna freak."

Claire ignored him and heaved again until she finally spat something into her open hand. "Sorry. Bullet."

She showed him the metal projectile. She had been right about getting shot, it wasn't funny. Petrelli made a mock face of disgust and Claire giggled, tossing it over her shoulder. The blonde girl abstained to comment how she would eventually expel the other bullet, the one that was probably in her stomach. There are some things you don't want even your loving uncle to know about you.

They got out of the car and walked to the front entrance. Peter, tagging slightly behind his niece, rotated his left shoulder – where he had been shot – and found it creaked uncomfortably. "I think I still have mine here," he frowned. "Will it go away too?"

Claire looked at him over her shoulder for a second. "It'll probably be better if we take it out ourselves. Ahhh, I think we have a problem here, by the way." He looked puzzled and the blonde explained herself, "There's no one at home, and my keys are with my cell phone. In my backpack."

Peter sighed as he thought about it. He then aimed at the lock of the door with the open palm of his hand, focused and, closing his eyes, tried to form a mental picture of the latch at the other side of the door. He thought about himself – no, not himself, _Sylar –_ turning the latch. There was a mechanical sound and the young Petrelli then pushed the door open.

"Wow," Claire nodded, impressed. "You sure come in handy."

"That's me, all right," the young man followed her into the house, "the human Swiss army knife."

Switching on the lights on her way, the Texan girl guided him through the house and into the kitchen. "Nice place," Peter murmured, too tired to really notice but wanting to be polite. "Should we call the police now?"

It was actually surprising that the men in blue weren't knocking on the door yet. Surely, somebody from the rest home would have called them in the following minutes after their face-off with O'Leary and Gunn, and the cops wouldn't have had any trouble finding Claire's backpack with her driver's license inside.

Peter went to sit down on a kitchen stool but he was interrupted by a little furry ball that appeared out of nowhere, yelping annoyingly and jumping on his legs. The young empath couldn't help but to grin as he bent down to hold the tiny Pomeranian. "Hey, Mr. Muggles!"

The cordless phone already in her hand, Claire's head snapped to look at him with wide eyes. Peter noticed her expression and frowned, as he pacified the little dog by scratching him between the ears. "What?"

"Nothing," Claire said quickly, turning back to the phone so he couldn't see the big dumb smile that was spreading throughout her face and that she couldn't fight back. "It's just that he usually doesn't like strangers."

'_Liar, liar, pants on fire!'_ her own voice sang within her head. What was making her smile was the fact that Peter knew the dog's name, and she had never told him anything about the canine _except during his coma._ He _had _been listening, even if he didn't realize so himself.

"You're calling the cops then?" Peter asked as she dialed and raised the phone to her ear.

"Better than that," she sighed. "I'm calling my dad."

---O---

**Racine, Wisconsin  
May 2009**

The investigation on the O'Connors' double murder had gotten them nowhere and frustration was the word to summarize the state of mind of the two men in the motel's room. The official position of the police department was that it had been a murder/suicide and they were more interested in closing the case than in delving any further into the situation.

The evidence was too clear, in their opinion. The news of Bob being a sexual deviant had spread like wildfire all over the neighborhood, and in every door that Mohinder and Bennet had knocked, they had gotten similar versions of the same answer.

He had seemed like just a regular guy, but then didn't they all?

When Noah's cell phone started beeping, both men were bent over the professor's laptop, going over the details of the case for the umpteenth time and getting to the same dead end. Nobody knew anything, and what was worse, nobody _wanted_ to know either.

The man with the horn-rimmed glasses had just suggested they should call it a night and the next morning they could start checking their old cases and see if there was any coincidence with any previous deaths they might have not seen the first time.

Bennet looked at the display of the phone and saw it was his home's number. He answered with a simple, "Hello?"

"Dad? It's me."

He smiled at his daughter's voice, "Claire bear? How are you doing, sweetheart? Everything alright?"

"Ah, no, not exactly," the slight tremor in the young woman's voice caused Bennet's smile to fade. "Something's happened..."

Mohinder noticed the way in which the older man's face suddenly dropped and how he blanched as he sat down on one of the twin beds of the room. He abandoned his work at the laptop to give all his attention on his friend, his own worry growing exponentially as the horror grew visible in Bennet's eyes. He considered his friend's family like his own.

"What do you mean, he's awake? Oh...really? Well, thank God for that," the former paper salesman frowned deeply. "He's there with you? Right now? I see...okay, who else is there?"

Whatever Claire was telling him, Mohinder was sure now, was not good. Not good at all.

"And those men, do you think there were...no? Claire, are you sure about that?"

The professor made a gesture with his hands, asking to know what was going on, but Bennet replied with a silent hand. _'Give me a moment'._ Taking a deep breath, the man took off his horn-rimmed glasses and wiped the cold layer of sweat that had formed on his forehead.

"Okay, this is what you're going to do. As soon as you hang up, call your mother, tell her not to go home and to spend the night at the Hawkins'...yes, I know she'll protest, but you need to convince her, okay? Then call Niki and D.L., and ask them to head back to their house as soon as they can. I'll contact them later, and I'll call Parkman myself, he'll take care of notifying the police and the law enforcement side of things...no, Mohinder and I will be there as soon as we can. You just stay calm and keep a cool head, alright, Claire? You're doing great, I'm very proud of you...I love you Claire bear, everything's going to be alright..."

"What's going on?" Mohinder asked as soon as Bennet disconnected the call.

"Claire was attacked at Peter Petrelli's rest home. Gunmen, apparently...and apparently there's been quite a number of people killed." The older man's words were seemingly emotionless, but he wasn't able to hide the paleness of his face nor the worry in his eyes.

The Indian professor's heart skipped a beat. "My God, do you think it's people from the Company?"

"I'm not sure," Bennet shook his head, browsing through his phone agenda. "Claire's description of her attackers doesn't seem to fit, and she suspects it was Peter they were really after, but she's not sure about that either. Could be a coincidence."

Mohinder's eyes darted to the laptop and the report he was composing about the O'Connors' murder. "On the other hand, it might not be."

"That's why I'm not taking any risks," the man with the horn-rimmed glasses looked pointedly at him. "I'm calling Parkman, the Hawkins will protect our families. Hiro's still in Japan?"

"Yes, I believe he's doing some kind of job for his father," Mohinder nodded.

"Call Ando then, have him locate Hiro and tell him to pick us up and transport us back home." He finally selected 'PARKMAN' on his phone's display and hit the call button. "If he's out of reach, I want a Yagamato jet collecting us at O'Hare and taking us to JFK ASAP. I'm not waiting for a regular flight. Not today."

The professor nodded in agreement. If their families were in danger, there was no way they were going to just hang around in an airport terminal. He got his own phone and looked for Ando's number in its memory banks.

"Ah, and there's something else..." Bennet added as the phone already started to beep in his ear. His voice was doubtful because he wasn't really sure of the meaning of what he was about to say.

At Mohinder's enquiring look, he finally said, "Peter Petrelli woke up just when those men were about to kill him in the rest home. He's with Claire now."

The professor's jaw nearly hit the floor. What the hell was going on here?

---O---

**One Police Plaza, Manhattan, New York  
May 2009**

Special Agent Matt Parkman, FBI, was feeling a bit rough around the edges as the lift climbed up to the tenth floor of the NYPD headquarters. His tie was crooked, his suit looked like it had been worn for two days straight – which it _had _been – and his five o'clock shadow started to itch. And his head was buzzing, way too annoyingly.

Thank God he was alone inside the elevator, otherwise, he knew he wouldn't have had the strength to keep his telepathy in line and that would have been more than what his incoming headache would've been able to tolerate.

The automatic doors dinged open and Parkman found himself face to face with his partner of two years in the Bureau. One look at the expression in Special Agent Audrey Hanson's eyes, and he knew his appearance was as bad as he feared it to be.

"You look like shit," Audrey said, never one to keep her opinions to herself. And what was the point with someone who could read your mind, anyway?

"Thanks. I love you too, Scully," Matt remarked snidely, stepping out of the elevator and accepting the plastic cup of steaming coffee that she offered him. "I was...I was at a party when you called."

"A party for two? Let me guess, you and your good friend Mr. Jack Daniels?" She gave him an annoyed look. "And don't call me _Scully_. You know how much I hate it."

Matt wasn't really interested in having that argument, _again. _He sipped the coffee. It was so black it could have been used to pave a road. "Don't bust my balls on this one, alright Hanson? Today's supposed to be my day off. What's this all about, anyway? Has to be important if the NYPD was desperate enough to call in the Bureau."

The blonde agent – short hair perfectly combed, immaculate light gray business suit highlighting her figure – sighed. "They didn't request the FBI's help. They asked for _you._"

_ Oh, so it's __**this **__they're interested in, _Matt grinned mentally, projecting his thoughts into his partner's head. _ And here I thought it was because of my charming personality. _

Audrey rolled his eyes at him. As a rule, she usually refused to communicate with him telepathically. Mostly because even the use of the word _'telepathy' _made her feel stupid. Like she was in a bad Star Trek episode or something.

She just handed Parkman a manila folder – a case file –and started explaining the situation as they began to walk side by side. "It's the Central Park Stalker, you heard of him?"

"Sure, it's been all over the news," Parkman sighed, reading the case details over. "Serial rapist, graduated to murder with his last two victims. A total of six women assaulted during the last two months, the survivors described him as an athletic man about six-one, roughly in his late twenties or early thirties, most likely Caucasian. No face description or fingerprints because he wears a ski mask and gloves. He uses a condom too, so no DNA. Clever little son of a bitch."

"Yeah, and he favors using a hunting knife to subdue his victims," Audrey was unable to hide her disgust, or better said, she didn't even try. "He cut the first four pretty badly, but the shrinks agree he was just practicing. The last two weren't that lucky."

Matt had a quick look at the photos of the surviving women. He was not very sure they'd been lucky at all.

"So, what do they need me to do?" he asked, closing the file.

"They got a suspect," the female agent said, making him arc his eyebrows. "One Ronald Lee Lipski, thirty-one, Caucasian, matches the height and weight descriptions. Works at the park, in the zoo's cleaning service."

_With that name, he __**has**__ to be a serial killer,_ Matt thought, gaining a smile from her for the first time in the evening. Mirroring it softly, he asked, "But?"

"_But_, all the evidence the police has on him is purely circumstantial," Audrey sighed. "They brought him in because the knife is apparently very rare, and he bought one just two days before the first attack. But get a load of this: when the cops searched his house, they found it dismantled in a bucket full of bleach."

Cunning bastard. The bleach would have destroyed any blood or tissue remains that might have slipped in the cracks of the handle or stuck to the blade.

Damn those CSI shows, honestly, to hell and back.

"So they basically have nothing on him," Parkman grunted. "How are they even sure he's the right guy?"

"They're sure, and what's more so am I. I've seen him, Matt. He did it, trust me." Audrey's use of his first name spoke volumes for the former LAPD officer. "In any case, the interrogation time limit's almost expired. If we don't get a confession within the next 90 minutes, he walks."

They arrived at the interrogation area, a closed door marked as such. Audrey leaned her hand on the handle but Matt prevented her from opening the door, by wrapping his larger hand around hers. He spoke directly into her mind, as softly as he could. _ You weren't there when I woke up yesterday. _

The female FBI agent looked around, as if trying to ensure that no one else had heard her partner's unspoken words. Which was impossible, of course, but human impulse could not be denied and she couldn't shake the sensation off. Licking her lips, she looked into his eyes. And damn, he was flashing her the big-hearted puppy dog eyes routine. Audrey hated him when he did that.

Well, no. Not really hate. She mostly wanted to kiss him. And then maybe slap him.

_ This is not the best time to talk about that, Matt. _

_ When then? _

"Later," Audrey said aloud, effectively ending the mind-to-mind conversation. She opened the door and walked in.

Parkman sighed and followed her. They meandered through a series of narrow, official-green painted corridors until they eventually made their way to a door labeled 'Interrogation #20'. Once again, Audrey led the way in and Parkman followed. Inside the darkened room, four men stood looking through a large one-way mirror that took up most of the width of the wall opposite to the entrance. As one, they turned to look at the incoming agents.

Audrey nodded politely at the most senior of the present men, "Commissioner Gordon."

"Welcome back, Agent Hanson. Agent Parkman," the older man – a white-haired gentleman in his fifties, with a neat grey suit in which lapel shone a gold pin with the NYPD emblem – greeted them. "I presume we all know each other here?"

"I think so, sir," Parkman tried to be as politically polite as he could as he shook everybody's hand by order of grade. After Gordon's, he saluted a handsome African-American man in his early forties - D.A. Harry Dent. Then came the smart-suited man who was Audrey's and his own superior at the Bureau – Special Agent in Charge Jack Wayne – and finally he shook the hand of an unhappy-looking Lt. Samuel Grayson, NYPD.

After shaking his hand, the police officer felt the need to comment, "I just want you to know that you've been called in against my wishes, Parkman. My men are perfectly able to deal with a scumbag like Lipski."

"I have no doubt about that, lieutenant." Matt's well-practiced polite grin contrasted with the mental image he formed of two uniformed NYPD officers beating up a restrained suspect with thick phone books, and which he mentally fed to his partner.

Audrey choked down a snort of laughter and apologized with a, "Sorry, I'm getting a cold," when all eyes turned to her. Mentally, she added, _ Asshole, you'll pay for that. _

_ Promises, promises, _ he grinned. Out loud, Matt told the policeman, "I'm just here to help."

Parkman gazed through the window, at the scene taking place in the interrogation room itself. That room was as spare as it could be, one table, three chairs and probably enough testosterone in the air to give a lesbian activist a stroke. Two plainclothes detectives – right now both of them with their jackets off and their shirts sleeves rolled up – were surrounding a third man.

The special agent was pretty sure that by now they had abandoned the good cop/bad cop routine, and gone into the bad cop/worse cop one instead. And he was quite certain that the suspect could smell that desperation along with the reek of sweat, coffee and cigarette smoke that had to be coming out of the policemen's pores.

He didn't have to use his mind powers to see that Ronald Lee Lipski was a very disturbed human being. It was all in the eyes, in his dead, shark-like eyes. They were fixed upon the mirror in front of him, looking straight at whoever was on the other side. They seemed to be mildly amused, but Matt saw through that façade. That man was completely devoid of any human emotion.

Apart from that, he was so ordinary-looking that Parkman was sure nobody would give him a second glance if they passed him by on the street. Average height and build, it was only his hands and bare forearms that revealed muscles like tense wire. He was probably stronger than he looked like, and would be resilient in a hand-to-hand fight, the kind of guy that takes the punches like they didn't hurt at all and who would bleed very little because he was mostly made of sinew and bone. Light brown, receding hairline, brown eyes and a face that was neither handsome nor ugly. Just plain. He was still wearing his uniform from the Central Park Zoo cleaning service, grey overalls and white T-shirt. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, but otherwise his clothes were so well kept that they seemed to have been just ironed, in spite of his having been in police custody for almost 70 hours.

Parkman expanded his conscious to the man and read his thoughts.

Lipski was singing inside his head.

…_Little Red Riding Hood...I don't think little big girls should...go walking in these spooky old woods alone…_

"Great," Matt grunted under his breath. "Now he ruined Sam the Sham for me."

"What?" the commissioner frowned at him.

The former LAPD officer ignored the older man, and inched closer to the one-way mirror, until his forehead was almost pressed to the glass. He closed his eyes, and let himself flow into Lipski's mind.

It was like in that science-fiction show they used to have on TV a few years back. Like going through the wormhole on the other side of the Stargate. Like crossing millions of light years in the blink of an eye.

And, all of a sudden, Matt Parkman's world was not his own, but the one of Ronald Lee Lipski.

_There is no sound but Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs singing "Little Red Riding Hood" in the background… _

_It's all tinted red, like the world is covered by a thin veil of red silk…like everything is covered in blood…_

_He's running through the woods… no, wait… a directional post, leading to the Zoo… Central Park…_

_There's a girl ahead… he's running behind her…_

_She turns her head around… there's panic in her eyes…_

_He is not running, he is __**chasing **__her…_

_Hunting her…_

_He catches up, tackles her to the ground...he can feel his own arousal growing in exponential waves... she kicks and tries to put up a fight...but he is stronger...he is the stronger one...the hunter..._

_He loves it all the more when they struggle...the whores..._

_Sam is singing, laughing in the background...he drags the woman, the prey into the woods...his knife shines red in the moonlight..._

"_Am I a good boy?" he hears himself saying, over the whimpers and begging cries of the whore... "Am I being a good boy, mom?"_

Parkman cut the connection off, waves of nausea rocking his stomach. His mouth tasted like sandpaper, and bile burnt its way up his esophagus until he managed to subdue the heaves to a tolerable level.

"You alright, Parkman?" somebody asked.

His head was buzzing too loud for him to know exactly who had said that. The thoughts then assaulted his mind from all sides.

_What's wrong with him? _

_Fucking weirdo. _

_How the hell does he do it? _

_We have to sort this out. _

_Matt, calm down, I'm here, I'm right here with you. _

Everybody's thoughts assaulted his mind at once, and the FBI agent had to make a strong effort to push them out. He focused on the only words he cared about at that moment, his partner's.

"I'm okay," Matt croaked, clearing his throat. "I'm, uh, I'm just a bit tired. Must be that flu bug going around, same one that got Agent Hanson."

_I'm alright, I promise, _ he silently told Audrey. Her look told him she knew he was lying. _I just need a second here. _

_And maybe a stiff drink, _ but Parkman didn't project that thought. He didn't want the blonde woman to bug him even more about that particular subject. "What do we know about his family?"

"Nobody close that we know," SAC Wayne said. "He's never been married, no kids either. No brothers or sisters, father died when he was a baby."

"And the mother?" Parkman inquired, interested.

"Alzheimer's," Wayne, one of the most verbally economic men Matt had ever met, summarized it. "She lives in a rest home in Queens."

"The bastard visits her every two days," Grayson growled. "He's her little darling son, the friggin' asshole."

The telepathic agent bit his lower lip, considering Lipski through the one-way mirror for a second. The man's eyes were fixed – by chance – back on him. "Alright, let's do this."

Parkman reached under his jacked and unclasped his handgun – holster and all – from his belt. He handed the semi-automatic to his partner, butt-first, and she gently accepted it, looking straight into his eyes. "Don't you want me to go in with you?"

_You don't need to do this alone, _ she added mentally.

With a grateful smile, he shook his head. "Nah, I'll call if I need you."

As he left the room, Dent released a sigh. "How does he do it? Get inside these monsters' heads all the time?"

Of course, the man spoke figuratively. He couldn't know that was exactly Matt Parkman's gift and curse. Audrey didn't answer him, for there was no way she could make someone like the DA understand the truth.

Her heart was clenched into a fist, when she saw her partner walking into the interrogation room.

Of all the rag-tag group of evolved humans that had met on that fateful night at Kirby Plaza, Parkman was the one who used his special abilities the most often. Because of that, Professor Suresh theorized, he was the one whose skills had strengthened and upgraded the most.

And because of that, his life was slowly but surely going completely down the drain.

It had all started while Parkman was recovering from his gunshot wounds in the hospital that night, and he had been paid a visit by the authorities. By then, Noah Bennet – God bless his Man in Black mentality – had already come up with a nifty little story that had nothing to do with superpowers, flying Congressmen or exploding nuclear psychos.

It went something like this: the infamous serial killer Gabriel Gray, a.k.a. Sylar, had traveled to New York looking for the one victim that had escaped his maniacal wrath, a teenaged girl called Claire Bennet. She had been sent to the Big Apple for a few days to stay with a friend and former associate of her father's, a successful artist by the name of Isaac Mendez, while the killer was being pursued by the FBI.

But Sylar had somehow found about this, murdered Mr. Mendez and kidnapped young Miss Bennet. Fortunately for her, and unknown to the killer, there had been somebody else chasing after _him._

Disgraced LAPD Officer Matthew Parkman, rogue cop extraordinaire, had made Sylar's capture his own personal mission. He had beaten the Bureau at their own game, putting the clues together and following the leads, and Officer Parkman finally found and engaged the serial killer at Manhattan's Kirby Plaza.

This was where things became a bit dodgy.

In the subsequent shootout, Parkman and Sylar had wounded each other, the cop sustaining five severe impacts to the chest but managing to squeeze off one single shot that – so said Miss Bennet's eyewitness declaration – had hit Gray right between the eyes. Sylar's body, in one of those one-in-a-million chance flukes, had then fallen down an open sewer hatch and disappeared from sight, but there was no doubt in Claire's mind that he was dead.

Nobody could survive a wound like that, both the eyewitness and Parkman had said firmly.

When the suspicious FBI agents had asked her what she thought could have happened for the body to disappear without a trace, Claire had flippantly suggested that it had gotten eaten by those alligators she had always heard lived in the New York City sewers. That had been her own two cents to the fabricated story, and it had not amused the Federal agents interrogating her very much, in spite of her dazzling teenage smile.

But the media was already calling Matt Parkman a hero – thanks mainly to Mr. Bennet's anonymous tip-off – and the local FBI office's collective hands were already full with the – coincidental? – murder of a famous organized crime boss and the disappearance of a newly elected Congressman, so basically there hadn't been very much they could do to prove or disprove the veracity of the story.

The newspapers – tabloids mostly, to be honest – had subsequently painted the suspended LAPD officer as a Hollywood cliché. Dogged cop following his own instincts, chasing a murderous psychopath across the country, using investigative skills nobody had suspected that he had until he had finally cornered and killed the bad guy.

Everybody loves a genuine American hero, after all.

Offering Parkman a position in the Bureau as soon as he had been released from the hospital had been little more than a PR stunt by the FBI, something to save some face after Sylar had eluded them so easily – to the point of attacking a SWAT-protected convoy and murdering, for reasons still unknown, a Federal prisoner by the name of Ted Sprague.

Nobody had actually thought Parkman would pass the demanding exam to get into the FBI Academy at Quantico, especially considering his well-documented and repeated failures to become a detective with the LAPD in the past. They had expected him to crash and burn, and then simply disappear back to LA to avoid the embarrassment.

Instead, he had excelled at it. Tested a first-time-ever 100 in the written exam. Passed the rigorous 15-week physical and mental training with flying colors and finally graduated in the top-tenth percentile of his class at Quantico, in spite of being almost ten years older than the rest of the recruits.

Of course, that his excellent performance on the written test had been due to the fact that Parkman had cheated like a mad bastard – how could he have failed if he could read the answers in the minds of the rest of the hopefuls attending, _and _the examiners themselves? But afterwards, it had been all his own merit.

Studying? He had a keener mind than anyone – sometimes even himself – would give him credit for. Physical? He might be a bit chubby and overweight, apparently, but there was pure muscle underneath those layers of fat.

And, clichéd image or not, he _was _a dogged cop. Eleven years on the force and never getting anywhere, pretty much proof of that. And he was set after proving to everyone, proving to himself, that Matt Parkman had what it took to run with the big dogs.

Still, none of that changed the fact that the brass saw him as nothing more than a potential source of embarrassment for the Bureau. He had been given his requested assignment at the New York office – he'd wanted to be near Dr. Suresh and his investigations, and wanted to keep an eye on Molly too – but had been positioned at an unremarkable bureaucratic post.

For a whole month, Parkman had spent his working life enclosed in a dark office, listening to surveillance tapes and transcribing them, and wondering every second if this was the bright future for which he had asked his pregnant-and-about-to-pop wife to forsake her job in California and set up shop on the other side of the country.

Fox Mulder, he was not planning on turning into.

But then, one fateful day – and wasn't he starting to have a lot of those? – SAC Jack Wayne had knocked on his door. The smart-suited man - somebody he had only briefly been introduced to and just because he was supposed to work under, although way down the chain of command – had politely asked him if the rumors he had heard about him being a skilled interrogator were true.

Frowning, Parkman had asked who might be spreading such rumors about him. Non-noncommittal as he was, Wayne had simply answered, "Audrey Hanson."

"You've never met anyone like me before," had been Parkman's self-assured response. He might have sounded smug, but the older agent had only nodded and then asked him to follow the SAC.

Matt's first interrogation had been in front of a Middle-Eastern man by the name of Ahmed Marcobi. A Moroccan national, with a student visa and suspected of belonging to an al-Qaeda cell that might or might not be planning an attack on American soil.

"See what you can get out of him," had been Wayne's only order, leaving him with the North Saharan man.

It had to be the biggest irony of them all, Parkman had thought at the moment. There he was, in front of probably his last chance at making it big, being the top-level law enforcer he had always wanted to be, and he was going to fail miserably. He was going to crash and burn as all those over him had predicted he would.

Because half a minute into the interrogation, and he realized that although he could hear the man's thoughts as clear as if he were speaking them aloud, Mr. Marcobi thought in _Moroccan. _And he didn't understand a word of it.

He was truly screwed, and he couldn't even explain how much or why.

But the newly appointed Federal agent didn't give up. It was not in his nature to do so. So he kept on questioning, probing further. Getting no verbal responses from the suspect, but a constant feed of thoughts that – for all he could understand – could be a complete confession or his laundry list. But he kept on concentrating, listening, looking... and in the end, he _saw_.

The images had come into Parkman's brain unbidden. In flashes. Blinding. Dizzying.

He saw faces, and understood names whispered in the man's accented mind-voice. He saw places, and felt the terrorist's mix of feelings about them. The exultant joy, mild regret, denied horror at what he had done, and what he was about to do.

He saw Union Station, in Manhattan. He saw faceless people walking through it in masses. And he saw fire, and the flying debris of an explosion. He saw people falling dead as they contorted in painful spasms, choking as they brought their hands to their throats.

He had heard one word he could understand. _Anthrax._

Parkman had kept on pressing, kept on pushing for answers. How did the terrorist get his bacterial spores? Where was the bomb? When was it going to explode? Marcobi's eyes had grown wide as the strange enemy questioned him about things he could not possibly know.

Parkman subsequently saw blueprints. Saw a calendar with a day marked in red. Saw an hour written next to it.

_That very day. In two hours time._

One hour and forty-five minutes later, a NYPD SWAT unit had stormed into Manhattan's Union Station and arrested five Moroccan and Algerian nationals. They had been in possession of a bomb made of 5 kilograms of Semtex plastic explosive and one ounce of anthrax dust.

The FBI estimated that the number of possible fatal casualties if the detonation had taken place would have rendered 9/11 a footnote in the dark annals of terrorism.

The six members of the al-Qaeda cell had gotten shipped off to Guantanamo Bay, and nobody had asked Parkman how exactly he had obtained the information. Not Special Agent in Charge Wayne, and certainly not anyone else.

That day, the legend of Matt Parkman was born in the halls of the Bureau. The man did the job, but you didn't ask how. You only prayed that he kept on doing it.

It was his shot at reaching the stars, and looking back on it now, it was also the beginning of his downfall.

Things had been less than peachy at the Parkman house by then. Although both he and Janice had been making a serious effort to save their marriage, it had been really hard for Mrs. Parkman to adapt to such a sudden change in lifestyle. From a highly-paid attorney in a prestigious law firm of LA, she had become a very pregnant housewife in the NY suburbs. The roles had been reversed, and although she had been proud and supportive of her husband's career success, there had also been a slight bitterness at the reversal of fortune that she hadn't been able to shake off.

Matthew Jr.'s birth had allowed husband and wife a new and temporary respite, but Matthew Sr.'s new job forced him to spend more and more time away, going places and doing things he simply couldn't tell her about – national security and all that. And then, too, there had been that thing regarding Audrey Hanson.

Her husband's partner. The _woman_, Janice had known – because Parkman himself had told him so – that her husband had _requested _as his partner.

Her jealousy had been ridiculous and unjustified, and what's more she had also known it. But like her feelings about her new role in life, Janice just hadn't been able to get rid of it.

The arguments and rows returned, and with them paranoia, guilt and blame. After all, if she had made the mistake of being unfaithful once, why couldn't Matt do exactly the same thing to her?

Matt's mind powers then took their third and so far final evolutionary step. Now, all of a sudden, he was not only able to hear and see other people's thoughts, but also to project his own into the minds of others. And, like had happened to him at the beginning, at first Parkman had not been able to control what was being emitted by his mind, especially when he was stressed or angry.

After all, who's never had an argument with someone they love and said something horrible in the heat of the moment? That kind of something you immediately regret and wish you could take back, because you didn't really mean it. Because it was so horrible and hurtful, but you just couldn't stop yourself from saying it aloud.

Now imagine if you couldn't control not your mouth, but your _thoughts. _If all that went through your mind, no matter how stupid or insensitive or unreal it was, came pouring out of your brain in a moment of rage and washed over the person you were fighting with.

Imagine trying to convince that person that, although you thought those things, they are not real. That you didn't mean them. That you still love that person, even though you just thought that you hated them. Even though you just wished you'd never met them in the first place.

Matt and Janice Parkman's marriage had crumbled like a sandcastle under a sledgehammer.

She had left him, calling Parkman a freak and a monster, and taken their son away with her. Matt hadn't tried to stop her, as he wasn't entirely sure whether or not she was wrong. Janice had said, just before she walked out the door, to forget about visitation rights and even alimony as well; as far as she was concerned, the man she'd loved and married was now dead and gone.

And if Matt tried to use the resources of the FBI to find her and Matt Jr. she'd leave the country, after she put a damn bullet in his brain.

Parkman had spent the next few weeks sleeping on D.L. and Niki's couch, feeling miserable and mostly annoying the hell out of his friends. It had taken three women to kick him out of his self-blame guilt trip and back into some semblance of dignity. Audrey had given him tough love, Claire had nursed him, and Molly...he saw himself through her eyes, and Parkman couldn't stand that at all.

The little girl worshipped him as her personal hero and although he felt like anything but that, he couldn't disappoint her. So he'd launched himself back into his work, and did his best to be that for her.

He only wished he would be doing the right thing, that what he did was worth the pain and the cost to his soul.

Serial killers and terrorists, crime lords and drug-dealing lowlifes, there was almost no case he didn't take, no mind he wouldn't probe and no criminal he couldn't apprehend. Matt Parkman had become a living legend. Respected, feared, shunned...and all that just by his peers.

They say that when you look too long into the abyss, the abyss also looks back into you. And Matt Parkman not only looked, he had dived head-first into it. Every time he walked though the nightmarish landscape of a killer's mind, living his crimes as if they were his own, it was like another piece of his soul had gotten chipped away.

Jack Daniels helped numb the pain. Making love to his female partner – or having sex with her, or whatever the hell it was that they really had together – offered him a fragile lifeline to sanity.

But he was sinking down, fast.

And as he opened the door of the room where Ronald Lee Lipski was being interrogated, Matt Parkman wondered if this would be the final blow to maintaining said sanity. It had to come eventually, but he prayed, prayed hard, it wouldn't be just yet.

The two cops that had been carrying out Lipski's interrogation raised their eyes towards him as Matt stood in the doorway. He leaned against the doorframe and simply motioned with his head for them to leave the room. The detectives stared at each other for a second, and one of them whispered a curse under his breath.

"Good luck, Parkman, but you're fucked," the other cop muttered, gathering his jacket before he and his partner moved to vacate the room. "You've no idea how tough this guy is."

As they walked past Parkman and off the room, the once that had cursed whispered venomously to the Federal agent, "Freak."

Matt only smiled and closed the door behind them.

Feeling Lipski's shark-like eyes on him, he took a mere second to gather his wits. Then, Parkman started humming.

_Little Red Riding Hood, by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs._

The killer's eyes went wide, and his back stiffened, but still remained silent. That was okay with Matt. He slowly made his way to the one-way mirror and the microphone console set up in the wall by it. Looking through it, and smiling, he switched the intercom off.

At the other side, Lt. Grayson cursed under his breath. "That's completely against procedure! What the fuck does Parkman think he's doing?"

"His job," Audrey said, her arms crossed over her chest. You better know what you're doing, Matt.

Parkman simply winked at her.

On the table of the interrogation room, the folders resuming the horrific tales of Lipski´s victims laid spread, along with a digital recorder. Matt sat down across the suspect and deliberately took his time to rearrange the files, all the way humming the song the plagued the psycho's nightmarish landscape.

He could feel Lipski starting to shift in his chair. One by one, the FBI agent took a single picture from each folder and placed them side by side on the table, leaving the rest of the documents stacked in a neat pile afterwards. They were the _'after' _mug shots of the victims. Two dead, four not much better than that.

With a flicker of a finger, Parkman switched off the recording device as well and finally placed his hands on the table, looking the rapist killer right in the eye.

"Have you been a good boy lately, Ronald? I don't think you've been."

"Who the hell are you?" Lipski spoke for the first time in hours, his face the one of a man who had just been slapped.

Matt grinned, but didn't answer him. The shark had left Lipski's eyes, and now was reflected on the telepathic agent's lips.

"I just want to talk to you, Ronald," he said.

"I don't want to talk about them," the killer sneered at the pictures. "I don't have anything to say."

"Oh, I'm sorry, but I think you've misunderstood me," Parkman arched his brow innocently. "I want to talk about you. _And your mother._"

---O---

When Parkman began to talk, he had one hour and thirty minutes to get a confession from the psychopath in front of him.

He only needed half an hour.

Five minutes after his lips started to put into words the thoughts he was reading in Lipski's mind, the killer started to go pale and shiver, like he was in the middle of Antarctica, wearing only a bathrobe.

Ten minutes and the cold-blooded murderer started to scream and insult him, demanding that Parkman shut up.

Fifteen minutes, and he was crying like a child.

On the twenty-minute mark, he was begging for Matt to stop.

Twenty-five minutes, and Lipski started scribbling a confession on the yellow notepad on the table.

Half an hour, case closed.

Parkman stood up from the table, the signed, tear-stained confession in his hand. He moved back the one-way mirror and reconnected the intercom. Lipski was a broken down pile of crying flesh behind him, his face hidden in his cuffed hands. The agent didn't look much better, to be honest.

"I'm done," Matt said to the people at the other side of the window, slamming the confession against the glass.

Lt. Grayson's jaw dropped several inches. "You gotta be _fuckin'_ kidding me."

"I don't hear anyone laughing, Lieutenant," SAC Wayne commented matter-of-factly.

"Simply amazing," Commissioner Gordon arched his snowy-white eyebrows. "It's not the first time I've seen Agent Parkman in action, but there is something truly... _supernatural _about him. How does he do it?"

"I'll tell you how," Grayson produced a pack of cigarettes and – giving the current no-smoking legislation a complete kick in the ass – proceeded to light up. He was angry about his men's failure and the FBI's apparently easy success, and it showed in his obnoxiousness. "It's because he's just as much of a freak as all these psychos he catches. There's no goddamn way he could get into their minds like that if he wasn't as fucked up in here as the rest of them." He tapped his temple. "We're just lucky that he hasn't snapped...at least, not _yet_..."

"Lt. Grayson," Audrey called his attention calmly as the policeman finished his tirade. The man blew out a cloud of smoke and looked at her expectantly and with scorn.

The blonde remained coolly detached as she spoke her next words. "If you don't shut your mouth right the hell now, I'll not only close it for you, I'll see to it that you get a visit from the police shrink to determine whether or not you're fit to carry your badge any longer."

"Now hang on, Hanson-" Grayson finally realized he had overstepped the mark, what with the way the Commissioner was staring at him unfavorably.

"No, _you _listen to me, _asshole,_" Audrey took a step towards the taller man, her petite frame still easy and non-threatening. He eyes, though, were ablaze. "Because the next time you have any words for my partner that aren't _'well done, Agent Parkman'_ or _'thank you for your assistance, Matt,'_ I'm gonna get my piece and shove it up your-"

"Agent Hanson, that's enough," Wayne halted her tirade. He didn't raise his voice, but the authority in it was clear as glass. The middle-aged man turned to Commissioner and offered him his hand. "Frank, always a pleasure to collaborate with the NYPD."

"Your help is always most appreciated, Stuart," the older man shook hands with him, giving Grayson a sideways admonishing glance.

The door opened and Parkman walked in. With the tense exchange of words, nobody had noticed him slipping out of the interrogation chamber where the plainclothes cops were now retrieving a still-sobbing Lipski.

_ Did I arrive just in time for the political ass-kissing? _Audrey gave him an annoyed look, and he just cocked his eyebrows. _ What? Did I miss something? _

When his partner refused to answer, he sighed and gave Lipski's written confession to Dent. The handsome man frowned a bit as he examined and read it over. "That was some amazing work, Agent Parkman. But honestly, I'm worried about the legality of all this. I don't think any good defense lawyer would have much trouble having this confession tossed out as evidence during the trial."

"The case against him doesn't need to go that far," Parkman said as he regained his sidearm from Audrey. "Lipski's willing to cut a deal. Life imprisonment without parole, ever, if you don't press for the death penalty. He only wants one thing in return."

The African-American advocate waited a second for Matt to elaborate. So the FBI agent said, "You just have to promise that his mother never learns about what he did."

"Goddamn twisted son of a bitch," Grayson mumbled under his breath. It was unclear who he was referring to, but at Audrey's steely gaze directed at him, the police detective managed to send a wintry smile to the man he hated. "Well done, Agent Parkman. Thank you for your assistance."

"My pleasure," a slightly confused Matt welcomed him, just as his cell phone started buzzing inside his pocket. "If you'll excuse me one second, gentlemen."

Parkman retrieved his phone and checked the caller ID before answering.

BENNET.

Frowning as he moved to one corner of the room and accepted the call, Matt took the cell to his ear. "Yeah, Parkman here."

Audrey followed him with her eyes, while the other law enforcement officials fell into a hushed discussion about what to do next with the Lipski case. Mostly, they started to argue about how to handle the first press announcements and who should get credit for what.

God, that was what she hated the most about the job. The politics. The PR. They were cops, for God's sake, not media whores.

But all thoughts about the subject flew out of the window as Audrey noticed the way in which her partner's back suddenly stiffened and the several degrees of paleness his face fell while she listened to whoever was at the other end of the line.

Parkman listened for a whole minute before answering with a clipped, "Of course, leave it in my hands. I'll be there myself in a few minutes."

"What's wrong?" she asked in a hushed tone as he disconnected.

"Family problems," Matt simply said, walking past towards the other men.

This worried Audrey more than it should have. There was only one _'family'_ she was conscious of Matt having, now that his ex-wife and son were history. And it was one she honestly wasn't comfortable thinking about.

It only served to remind Hanson that her partner and secret lover was part of a group that she could never truly belong to, even if she had wanted to.

"Gentlemen, I'm sorry to interrupt you," Parkman said, gaining the other men's attention. "But I need an urgent favor."

---O---

**Queens, New York  
May 2009**

Ditko and Cockrum sat in the interior of their black Charger, parked in front of the house next door to the Bennet's. They were silent, the older man deep in thought as he looked at the two-storey home from behind the steering wheel. His partner was restless, constantly shifting in his seat and generally driving him bonkers.

"We could just do it ourselves," the taller, younger man in black suggested – not for the first time. "Go in and take care of everything before they manage to get help."

Ditko craved a smoke so badly he could have shot his colleague in the head just to get one. And he might do it anyway, if the other man kept on speaking much longer. "We've already screwed up enough for one day. So we just do as ordered."

"_We_ screwed up?" Cockrum was aghast. He snorted, "And here I thought it was those ass-hatted, good-for-nothing mobsters who had fucked it up all the way to hell. Those ass-hats _and _the bright minds who decided to use them as a cover-up."

"It was a good plan," the older man pinched the bridge of his nose tiredly. "Nobody could have foreseen that Petrelli would wake up at exactly the wrong moment."

The other Company man looked at his partner, annoyed. "Why do you always have to defend them? Jesus, it's like you're on their payroll or something."

"Actually I am, yeah. And so are you. They pay for our houses, our clothes, the meals I put on my family's table and also that red Corvette you just made the first payment on." Ditko was the annoyed one now, and it really showed.

A cigarette? He could smoke an entire pack in the next five minutes.

Cockrum crossed his long arms over his chest and childishly looked away, towards the Bennet house. "Still," he insisted, "that doesn't make them right every single time."

Yes, but Ditko _needed _to believe they were right. To question such an assumption, to doubt even one of their decisions would mean having to do so with every single one of them. It would mean doubting the rightness of their cause. It would mean having to accept they might just be cold-blooded killers, instead of the saviors of the world.

He couldn't live with that on his mind.

So, Ditko obeyed. As best as he could. As professional as he was.

"So, what did they say?" Cockrum asked, and this time the older man was somewhat grateful to be taken out of his reverie. "What's Plan B?"

"They're sending out the specialists."

The younger man's eyes shot towards him, wide just for a second. Ditko only nodded, seriously. The fear that was reflected in his partner's look didn't need to be voiced aloud to be understood.

Cockrum sighed and looked outside once again. The suburban neighbourhood seemed quiet and peaceful, a safe haven for honest working families. "This looks like a nice place to live."

His partner didn't need to answer. Both shared the same thoughts at that moment.

It was a nice place to live, yeah. A shame how it would soon become a war zone, though.

---O---

Convincing her mother the best thing she could do was to stay away from her own home was even more difficult than Claire had anticipated, especially after explaining to her the reason why. Sandra Bennet could appear to be aloof on the outside – and sometimes just not all the way _there_ – but she was one heck of a fierce woman when it came to protecting and caring about her family.

And the former cheerleader loved her adoptive mother all the more for that. Sometimes, she even wondered if Sandra hadn't been just another secret agent like her dad, and all that Mr. Muggles stuff wasn't just an act she had cooked up to confuse her enemies and put them all off-guard.

Whatever the case, it was a lesson learned long ago that you didn't want to be at the wrong end of Mrs. Bennet's temper. So, eventually, Claire told her mom that she wasn't alone in the house, because Matt Parkman was already there. She really couldn't even start to figure how to tell her that her protector for the day was actually her just-awakened biological uncle. The same young man that looked like he was the one in need of protection right now, as he held the yapping dog in his arms and groggily let him lick his nose while he fought not to fall asleep.

The blonde girl told her mother that she was alright, not to worry, that yes, she would be careful and that yes, she would take care of Mr. Muggles. She told her that she loved her. She then hung up the phone and briefly wondered what kind of hell was reserved for misleading daughters.

Claire looked at Peter, who sensing her eyes upon him, turned to give her a tired smile. Pale and sweaty, gaunt and covered in dried blood, he looked truly awful. She wanted nothing more than to hug him and never let him go.

"This really is one affectionate little fella," he grinned. "He just won't stop licking me."

"It think he just likes the taste of your dried blood, Peter," she observed deadpan.

"Argh," disgusted, the young Petrelli immediately and unceremoniously dropped the Pomeranian to the floor. "Bad, bad dog!"

Mr. Muggles protested and yapped, trying to climb back up Peter's legs. The dark-haired young man poked him with a gentle TK burst and the tiny four-legged canine quickly scuttled away. "Get lost, you little monster."

"Don't you ever do that in front of my mom, or she'll have you flayed alive," Claire chuckled, walking closer to him. "And we don't want that, don't we?"

"No, we don't."

One of _those _moments passed between them, in silence, as man and woman looked at each other in comfortable closeness. Yet, neither of them dared to fully reach for the other, in fear the gesture wouldn't be understood, or accepted. Finally, it was Claire who broke the quiet with a sigh. "Okay, while Matt and Dad and the rest arrive, we should do something about appearances. And we might take care of that bullet in your shoulder as well."

Peter nodded, letting her take his hand and lead him to the bathroom upstairs. He missed the contact when she finally let him go. "I'll get my kit and some fresh clothes for you, alright?"

The former nurse nodded, unable to find the words to thank her. A mere _'thank you'_ somehow didn't seem enough. He could only hope she would understand.

Claire left him with his thoughts and quickly walked around the house, gathering what she needed. First, she went to her own room and got her _'kit'_, a plain first-aid box of which she had substituted the band-aids, gauzes and mercurochrome for scalpel, pliers and forceps. She got fresh clothes for both Peter and herself too.

On her way from her parents' bedroom, where she had gotten a pair of her dad's sweatpants for his new houseguest, Claire stopped and turned around at the door, making a split-second decision. She returned to the wardrobe after leaving the pile of clothing on the bed and, kneeling down, uncovered a small safety deposit box by moving aside a few shoeboxes.

The blonde girl used the combination Noah Bennet had given her upon setting it up – only for a life-threatening emergency, and wasn't this one? – on the digital padlock to open it and retrieve a semiautomatic pistol from its interior along with a fully loaded clip.

It was a Glock 26, the same compact yet powerful gun that the NYPD advised its officers to use as either a backup or to be carried off-duty. Claire checked that the 10-round magazine was indeed full and inserted it into the butt of the pistol, quickly bringing the slide back to load a cartridge into the chamber. It didn't have a manual safety, but the trigger was a double-action only, which meant it was as safe as a revolver and so, she just tucked it into the waistband of her trousers, at the small of her back, and covered it with the hem of her T-shirt. She didn't plan to tell Peter about it, for fear he would get all freaked out and protective on her.

She really knew how to take care of herself, although sometimes it seemed the complete opposite. And tonight, Claire was determined to take care of her uncle as well.

The once cheerleader grabbed the pile of clothes and items from the bed and returned to the bathroom, humming under her breath.

Peter was just as she had left him, sitting down on a stool in front of the mirror, looking at his own reflection with vacant eyes. For a second, her heart skipped a beat, as she couldn't shake the idea that he had lapsed back into catatonia.

Then, Petrelli saw her image in the mirror as she stood behind him and turned slightly, giving her a small smile. Not a real one, as it didn't reach his eyes, but good enough to still her racing heart.

"I thought you would've already gotten rid of those soiled rags by now," she said, leaving the clothes on top of the toilet bowl's closed lid.

"You're that eager to get me all naked that way?" he chuckled tiredly, not really thinking about what he was saying.

There was a dull _'clank!' _as Claire stumbled over her own feet and let the first-aid kit fall to the floor. The box opened and its contents spread all over the tiled floor with a series of metallic clanks. She cursed between clenched teeth, and quickly knelt down to get everything back, hoping he wouldn't notice the tell-tale crimson shade her cheeks had suddenly acquired.

"I'm so-sorry," she stuttered. "I'm so stupid, and clumsy and accident-prone. Thank God I can heal or-"

"You're not stupid, so don't you ever say that again," Peter said sharply, and she realized he had gotten off the stool to go down by her side and help her in the task. Claire was warmed by the sincerity in his voice and could only look at him as he carefully gathered the fallen tools one by one and put them back into the box. "And you sure didn't seem clumsy at all back there when you saved me. Where did you learn to drive like that, by the way?"

She grinned, tucking a loose strand of golden hair behind one ear. "What can I say? I'm half-Italian, half-white trailer park trash. I come genetically engineered to drive fast and hard."

It was his turn for chuckling, but there was tiny sting within his chest at the reminder that Claire – after all – really was a Petrelli. "Yeah," he nodded, "Nathan was always a speed devil too. That's part of why he became a pilot, I think. Cars just weren't fast enough for him."

His eyes instantly filled with unshed tears as, knelt on the floor, they looked at each other again. Then Peter got this expression on his face, like a small, lost boy, and Claire's heart broke in two as her uncle asked, "Did he have a nice funeral at least? I mean, did many people attend or-"

"Yeah, yeah, it was beautiful," she nodded, reaching for him, laying a petite hand on his arm and feeling it tremble under her fingers. "He had a hero's funeral, with military honors and all. Just like he deserved."

"That was all my fault, wasn't it?" Peter finally broke down into tears, openly crying. "It should've been me, Claire. I could have, I _would_ have survived it! But I wasn't strong enough to stop Sylar and he - oh, Jesus, Nathan-"

"No, no, Peter, stop!" Claire took him fully into her arms, embracing him tightly as the dark-haired young man began to be wracked by powerful sobs. "It wasn't your fault, you hear me? It _was not_ your fault. It was Sylar's. Not yours, just his."

But Claire Bennet didn't really believe that. Well, it was obvious how Gabriel Gray was the one to be blamed for her biological father's death, but he was not the only one. Angela Petrelli and whoever she had worked for or with had as much responsibility for the events of Kirby Plaza as that murderous psycho. And, truth be told, so did Nathan himself as well.

But Peter wasn't ready to hear those truths. And this was neither the time nor the place to make him face them. All she wanted was for her uncle to stop blaming himself. He didn't deserve to be punished like that, when all he had done was to be the only courageous one, the only believer in a land of jaded atheists.

The Texan girl held her secret crush tightly, one hand running smoothing circles on his back, the other lost between the silk short locks of his dark hair. After a couple of seconds, she felt his own arms wrapping themselves around her, nearly crushing her to him.

Claire welcomed the sensation. She gave him her warmth and let herself get lost in the one provided by his body. His face fell into the crook of her neck and he cried, cried hard and long.

She rocked Peter Petrelli, and wished her power could mend his broken heart.

---O---

Peter felt like a robot after his breakdown. Unresponsive as a puppet as, after he ran out of tears, Claire helped him to stand up and sit back down on the stool, all the while whispering soothing words in his ear.

He wondered what he would do right now if he didn't have her. Maybe fall back into that coma. Maybe go nuts. Maybe say to hell with it all, and use Ted Sprague's power to explode into a nuclear fireball.

Become someone who might as well have died along with his brother.

These thoughts brought out in Peter a strange memory. Or maybe it was just the recollection of a dream, he wasn't sure. But there was a beach, and quiet waves breaking along the shore.

And somebody was asking him to look for something worth living for.

Claire derailed that particular train of thought when he heard the blonde girl – _Young woman, actually, _ he corrected himself – taking in a sharp breath. Peter frowned and raised his eyes, which had been downcast as she eased his ruined bathrobe and pajama top off his torso.

A pale, gaunt stranger returned his look from the mirror. Sunken chest, prominent ribs, stick-thin arms. It was a miracle he was alive and kicking. "Oh well," Petrelli groaned surly, "at least I'll make it as the poster boy for Anorexia Awareness this month."

"That's not funny," Claire returned, unamused. "God, I knew you were getting way too skinny by being tube-fed all the time, but this is just-"

"Thank you so much for your support," Peter cut her off, looking at her over his shoulder.

"Well, don't you worry," Claire nonchalantly dismissed his ghost-like looks. "I'm sure you'll go back to your usual handsome self once we've gotten a few T-bone steaks inside you."

"I don't eat meat," Peter observed, staring at her via the mirror and trying to ignore she had just used the word 'handsome' to define him. She probably had just said it to ease his discomfort at his current physical state. "I'm lacto-vegetarian."

For the next few seconds, they just held gazes through the mirror. Claire looked like he'd just told her he was an alien from Alpha Centauri. "You're a _what?_"

"_Lacto-_vegetarian. Means I don't eat meat or eggs, but I can have dairy products."

"I know what it means, jeez," Claire rolled her eyes. "It's just that I can't believe it! I mean, you're supposed to be Italian, for God's sake! You live in the world's Italian food capitol."

"Well actually, the world's Italian food capitol is, you know, in _Italy._"

"_What_-ever. I don't know," she shrugged, "I guess I just thought you guys would have had these huge meals at home, everybody sitting around a big pot of steamy spaghetti and Bolognaise sauce, with pastrami and cheese..."

Once again, Peter turned his head to look at her over his shoulder. "Seriously, you have a big problem remembering the family name. It's not Andretti, and sure as hell it's not _Soprano_ eitherIt's Petrelli. Pe-treee-lli."

They looked at each for another few seconds, and this time they both burst into giggles. Peter needed almost a full minute to calm down and stop laughing, and it was only then he realized how quickly, smoothly and easily Claire had managed to turn the tide of his emotion, to make him go from tears to laughter.

She was amazing, and for more reasons he had ever thought.

"C'mon skinny guy, bend over," Claire playfully told him, as Peter faced back towards the mirror. "Let's get that bullet out."

Peter complied, unable to erase the grin from his lips. Then, Claire's hands were on his naked flesh and he felt like a lightning bolt had struck right him on his backbone.

"Something wrong?" she asked, noticing his flinch.

"No, errr..." There were goosebumps rising all over his skin, as she gently tested his wounded-yet-healed shoulder-blade with her fingertips, searching for the projectile embedded deep inside his flesh. "It's a bit chilly in here, that's all."

Yeah, right.

"Hey, what's this?" Claire inquired out of the blue, and Peter felt her fingers move from his shoulder to the nape of his neck.

"What's what?" he frowned.

Claire had never seen it before, because his hair had been so long all the time, but now that it had been sheared away and the back of it was down to buzz cut, she noticed a small scar right under his hairline. It was merely one inch long, but perfectly vertical and straight.

"You have a scar here," she traced its contour with a delicate fingernail. "I've never seen it before."

The young Petrelli male felt the goosebumps coming back, with a vengeance, and needed a couple of seconds to concentrate and decipher her words. "That, uh, it's a-a childhood accident. I fell from a swing when I was really little, like three or so. I don't remember it, but Mom said they had to give me some stitches. And that she got really scared for a while. Oh, speaking of which..."

The blonde Texan arched a skeptical eyebrow, glad that in his bent over position, Peter couldn't see her expression. She had a really hard time trying to imagine a scared Angela Petrelli. "Your mom?" Claire simply asked softly.

"Yeah."

The subject of Peter's mother and what she would have eventually have to tell him about her, was not something that Claire wanted to pursue so she decided to change the subject. "I don't know where she is right now, but I'm sure she'll hear the big news about you soon enough. Anyway, you bumped your head real bad, huh? Well, that explains a lot of things about you."

"Excuse me?"

Chuckling, Claire turned her attention back to his shoulder and the task at hand while he mumbled something about no-good-mannered youngsters and the respect they didn't have for their elders.

Claire finally located the bullet and pressed on it with her left thumb. As she got a scalpel from her kit box, she warned the dark-haired young man. "Seems to have gone quite deep, maybe lodged against the bone. This is gonna hurt a bit."

"It's alright," he shrugged a bit. "I'm used to it."

"_Que macho,_" she rolled her eyes. "Okay, here I go."

The razor-sharp blade bit into Peter's flesh two inches above the spot where the bullet was buried and he hissed in pain, flinching a little. He wasn't sure was shocked him the most, the pain of the actual cut, the coldness of the metal, or how sure and decided her hand felt all through the motion.

Claire kept him still with her free hand as she carefully but with precision sliced down in a perfectly straight line for about four inches. "Thought you were used to the pain."

"Okay, I might have spoken a bit too hastily there," he agreed with a chuckle.

"It's alright, Peter, don't worry," Claire said softly as she moved her free hand to hold the wound open with her thumb and forefinger while she got rid of the scalpel and reached to retrieve a pair of long forceps. "That's the good thing about physical pain with regard to people like you and me, you know? As soon as it vanishes, even the memory of it fades away."

She didn't need to add that it was just the opposite with the spiritual one. That lasted for a lifetime, and its scars, although invisible, never disappeared. She didn't need to say it aloud because both of them knew it too well.

There was blood running from the wound, thick and dark down his pale back. She moved with a precise, quick speed and inserted the pincers into the open flesh. Peter groaned as she rummaged – as carefully as she could but still with energy – and grabbed the elusive projectile with her tool.

"You, _oh Christ_, you actually know what you're doing, right?"

Snorting, the blonde Texan ensured she had the bullet in a firm grasp before starting to pull. It resisted, though, being stubbornly trapped into his shoulder-blade. "Why do you think I keep this box handy? I can't just go to the hospital and have a doctor extract glass, or wood, or whatever from my body and then let him see the wound closing in front of his eyes. Nah, I just – _c'mon you little bitch, just come out!_ – I usually have to do it myself."

With a squishy sound and a nearly inaudible '_plop!'_ the offending piece of metal finally yielded and came out, the open wound regurgitating another dose of syrupy blood.

"Ha! I gotcha!" Claire exclaimed, triumphant.

Peter sighed in relief, fighting off a wave of nausea and dizziness. Claire released his wound and got the discarded, and already ruined, pajama top to soak the blood running down his back. The wound closed up by itself in mere seconds, leaving no trace it had ever existed.

Just like she had said.

Peter sent her a small frown. "And do you have to do it often these days? Pulling wood and glass and stuff out of yourself?"

Still holding the forceps in her hand and with the bullet captured in its point, the former cheerleader just made a strange expression with her face as she shrugged again. "What can I say? I'm accident-prone." She moved the forceps towards him, offering him the projectile. "There you go, your first bullet. Congratulations."

Opening his hand, the New Yorker let his niece drop the tiny piece of metal on his palm. He examined it for a brief instant and found it still covered in small chunks of flesh and gore. He grimaced, "What am I supposed to do with this?"

Claire grinned. "Put it under your pillow. If you've been a good boy, the NRA fairy will come and exchange it for a shiny dollar while you sleep."

Returning the grin, Peter arched one eyebrow. "The NRA fairy?"

"Yeah, looks like a very small Charlton Heston, only it has butterfly wings and pointy ears. It gives money to kids so they can buy more guns, making use of their Constitutional rights and be able to protect this country from wild bears and invading British."

"_Yee-haw, _God bless America!"

"God bless!"

His grin was silly, and he knew it, but didn't give a damn about that. She was making an effort to be serious, but the corners of her lips were curling upwards.

Amazing? It didn't even begin to describe Claire Bennet.

Peter only realized he had reached out to hold her hand when she stopped looking at him. Her smile turned doubtful and shy, and a tiny voice said inside his head, _'Ten years younger, AND she's your niece. Stop flirting with her, damn it!'_

Although he wasn't flirting, was he? If he was, he sincerely wasn't conscious of such, for this... exchange, felt so natural, so... _them_. Peter wondered when he had started to think about Claire and himself in the terms of _'them'_ instead of, well, _'Peter and Claire'_.

He didn't really know very much about her, to be honest. Just that she was amazing, funny, brave and beautiful.

_ And my niece. Nathan's daughter. Sister to Simon and Monty. Oh! I hope to God they and Heidi are okay, it's been nearly two and a half years... _

Sighing, and blaming his current state of confusion for these erratic thoughts, he let Claire's hand go. "I think we should have those showers. Want go first?"

Claire was looking away, deep in thought, and needed a couple of seconds to answer him. "No, ah, you go ahead, I'll get rid of the clothes meanwhile. We'll have something to eat afterwards?"

"No meat?" he arched his eyebrow, boyishly.

Her smile returned, but it was her sad little one, and he had a sudden revelation. For the first time, Peter had the sensation that he _knew _what that so-Claire smile meant. She was keeping something to herself.

"I can't promise anything," she managed to hold his dark gaze. "This is still a Texan household, after all. We put meat even in the milkshake."

"Swell."

The blonde chuckled, gathering from the floor the clothes Peter had already discarded. She moved to the door, followed by his eyes. "I'll get your, err, your bottoms later."

"Okay," he nodded. Peter waited until she was at the threshold to call for her attention. "Claire?"

"Yeah?" she halted in her tracks, turning around with her arms full of bloodied rags.

"Give me a shout if anything happens, alright? I'll be with you in a flash."

_Flash._ Claire had a sudden one of a naked and dripping wet Peter charging to her rescue. A tiny part of her brain said that it maybe should have been exciting image, but it was actually so ridiculous that she couldn't help but to snort in laughter.

The young woman was still laughing as she left Petrelli sitting on the stool inside the bathroom, blinking in puzzlement, as she closed the door behind her.

"Did I say something funny?"

---O---

The rear doors of the Charger opened so suddenly that neither Ditko nor Cockrum had time to react. Their hands flew instinctively to the grips of the pistols underneath their jackets as they turned around, but by the time their fingers reached the plastic and metal weapons, there were already two men inside the sedan, sitting in the back seat.

"Gentlemen, please," said the first one, with a cultured yet deeply accented voice. "There is no need for such a display of alarm. We are all friends here, yes?"

Ditko had to lean and peer over the backrest of his seat to look at the speaking man, for he was so short. Not that there much to see, in his opinion. He seemed to be Chinese, probably from Hong Kong - judging by his Cantonese accent - in his late thirties or maybe early forties, with a slightly pock-marked face, and dressed in black, from his $5000 Armani suit, to his shirt and tie. He gave the senior agent a polite smile, one that didn't reach his dark piercing eyes.

A chill ran down Ditko's spine. Those eyes were so cold and heartless he had the impression to be looking into an android's ones.

The other man, on the other hand, was his exact polar opposite. He was so big to start with that, when he sat into the car, the rear suspension went down several inches and a grunting noise shook the entire structure of the Dodge. His 7-plus foot tall frame barely fit into the rear space, and he dwarfed the Chinese guy so much he made the man look even smaller than what he actually was. This man was African-American, with muscles big as a brick outhouse bulging and tensing a cheap brown suit that he wore with a shirt and no tie. Ditko doubted it was physically possible to tie the upper button around such a thick neck anyway.

The black man only grunted gutturally as a greeting.

Cockrum exchanged a quick glare with his partner, both of them wondering if things were getting better, or worse.

"My name is Ghost," the Chinese man said, smiling all the while. "This is my partner, Mr. Stone."

The younger of the two agents groaned, and his partner couldn't help a grin of his own. Most of the Company's specialists went by codenames, some more fortunate than others. It was as much if a mystery as it was a running joke to guess who had actually come up with them and what they meant.

However, Ditko didn't feel like joking right now. The mere fact that these two had sneaked up on them unnoticed until they were inside the car spoke volumes of their skill. And that this kind of individual had been sent by their bosses, well, that said a lot about the interest they had in bagging and tagging young Miss Bennet.

"You're welcome," the cigarette-loving man in black said, trying to sound as unimpressed as he could. Not because Ditko wanted to despise the newcomers, but because of the same reason you don't want to show yourself afraid in front of a tiger. "I take it you've already been briefed about the mission at hand."

Stone grunted, his massive bald head barely nodding in affirmation.

Ghost, on the other hand, was far more eloquent. "Absolutely. I understand your original attempt at retrieving Miss Bennet has proved less than successful, yes? A shame, I should say, it seemed like _such _a brilliant plan on paper. It must have been such a disappointment for you that it failed so soundly."

The tiger, of course, always had the luxury of showing himself condescending.

"Hey dude, we can only work with the tools we have at hand," Cockrum sneered at the Chinese man. "See if you can handle yourselves better."

Ditko sent daggers at his partner with his eyes, but the man in the rear seat only stared at him with his cold polite smile. "Unfortunately, I'm afraid any further actions will have to be postponed at least until tomorrow."

This shocked the two Company men, though they did their best not to show it. The older of them frowned, "How come?"

Ghost took his time to gather an engraved silver cigarette case from the interior pocket of his jacket and extract a thin cigar from it. Slowly, he lit it up with the lighter incorporated in the case and blew a blue-grey cloud of smoke towards the general direction of the two men in front.

"Even as we speak, there are two squad cars from the NYPD heading this way. And at least one sedan with Federal plates driven by two FBI agents as well. Now, as much as we want to be in possession of our intended target, we do not desire to face off against New York's finest in an open engagement, yes? Such a public exposure of our activities would be most... unacceptable."

The two men in the back seat opened their doors and got ready to get out of the car. After crossing another look, Cockrum cursed under his breath and asked, "Hey, how the fuck did you find out about that?"

Ghost, his body already and smoothly out of the vehicle, leaned to grin at them from outside. "You should switch on your police scanner, gentlemen. It is standard procedure after all, yes?"

"Wait, this is ridiculous," Ditko prevented the short man from retreating. "We need to keep an eye on the gi- on the _target. _We can't afford to lose her."

The Chinese man's smile turned even more ice-cold, if such a thing was even possible. "You don't need to worry about such an event, my friend. We already have somebody on the job."

They closed the doors, Ghost carefully, the hulking black man so strongly that the whole car was rocked and both of the men inside marveled the windows didn't explode.

"Fuck that, and fuck them," Cockrum angrily punched the dashboard as his partner started the engine. "We just got relegated to play second fiddle here, man. You still thinking the big men are showing their real cards?"

Ditko didn't answer. He just calmly pulled the car out and drove past the Bennet house, switching on the headlights only when it was well behind them.

"Well? What do we do now?" the younger man crossed his arms over his chest, his foot nervously tapping on the floor. "Any ideas?"

His partner simply shrugged. "I don't know about you, but I'm gonna go buy a pack of cigarettes."

---O---

Peter knew there were a lot of things he should be thinking about. Like the best way of getting in contact with his family, or what was left of it. Heidi, his nephews, his mother...all of them would want to know that he was now awake and mobile again, but he doubted that just calling them up on the phone and saying _'Hey, guess who's back?' _would be the ideal way to do it.

Peter briefly wondered if Claire had kept in touch with his sister-in-law. If she had told Heidi how she was Nathan's illegitimate daughter. Half-sister to her sons.

He also wondered if his mother hated him for having caused Nathan to die that way.

Petrelli wondered, but the thoughts passed quickly, like sand between his fingers. He could just not concentrate on anything.

His head was bent down as the spray of water from the shower hit his body, as hot as he could tolerate. His flesh turned pink as the nearly boiling water almost scalded him, but he still felt cold inside.

All he could see was the blood being washed off him, pinkish and thin as it disappeared down the drain in complex rivulets.

At one point, he heard soft noises in the bathroom and he turned his head slightly. Peter could see the out-of-focus figure of Claire through the smoked glass of the shower screen. She moved in silence, gathering the last discarded items of clothing he had left behind. He heard the rustling of plastic and supposed she was probably putting them into a garbage bag.

Even only being able to see her distorted and enveloped in shadows, he had to admit the grace she moved with was uncanny for a sixteen-year-old.

No, wait, make that _eighteen_-year-old. Two and half years had gone by, more or less, and she was an adult now.

Another two years and a half of her life that he had lost, just like he had lost the first sixteen ones. He wondered what their relationship would be like now if for all those years they hadn't lived in ignorance of each other. If now he would actually feel familial towards her, feel like she really _was _his niece.

But if she didn't feel like his niece – what she _was_ – then what did she feel like? He was not sure he wanted to dwell on that.

What Peter was sure about, was that he didn't have the energy right now to even maintain a straight and stable line of thought. His thoughts were erratic and chaotic, and he was going from one thing to the next in a millisecond.

There was Claire and his blood going down the drain, and it spiraled in a clockwise motion down the drain because of the Earth's magnetic field. In the southern hemisphere it would go anti-clockwise, and that was called the Coriolis effect. He had been terrible at physics in school, were Claire's grades any better? He could bet Nathan would have been proud of her if he had been there to be her father. He was proud of her. Had his parents ever been proud of him? His father surely had never told him so, not once. He had preferred drinking to telling his secondborn that. That man had never been a big fan of Scotch. He had always favored bourbon, like Nathan. He did like it, on the other hand. It was one of his few guilty pleasures. Did Claire drink alcohol? Did she go to parties with her high school friends? Did she have a boyfriend? If so, did he know how special she was? Not only in the way an unexpected twist of genetics had turned her into, but in the way Peter himself knew she was.

Circles within circles. His mind was spinning like his blood did into the darkness of the drain. Circles and circles.

And all of them took him back to Claire Bennet.

"Peter?" her voice came from afar, rescuing him. "Are you alright in there?"

He could see her through the smoked glass, barely her silhouette, only at an arm's length. So near, yet so far away.

"You're awfully quiet," she insisted. "Are you alright?"

No, he wasn't. He didn't even know how he was. "I'm...I'm coming out."

The young Texan remained still at the other side of the glass while he turned the water off. He felt suddenly wet and cold. "Claire?"

"Yeah?"

"I said,I'm coming _out._"

"Oh!" Miss Bennet finally caught the meaning of his words. "I'll be, uh, I'll be waiting outside. I've left some clothes for you on top of the toilet, okay?"

He nodded. Not sure she could notice his assertion through the glass, he added, "Right. Thank you."

Peter didn't notice if she was nodding now, either. But he saw her reaching out and placing her hand flat at the other side of the glass. Silently amazed, he reciprocated by laying his own palm against hers. Even through the glass, she was so petite. But she felt so damn huge at that very moment.

Then Claire was gone, without another word. And Peter didn't feel cold and wet anymore. He only felt empty.

---O---

Noah Bennet was a large man, but Peter had never really realized just how much so until he found himself lost in his sweatpants. They were so huge around his now stick-thin frame that when he knotted the cord around his waist, the laces hung down to his mid-thigh, and the legs pooled around his ankles.

The T-shirt Claire had left for him, on the other hand, would have fit him perfectly if he had been his pre-coma fit self.

Dried, short hair still wet but not dripping, he contemplated his reflection in the mirror. The tee was familiar – dark blue with the FDNY letters in yellow across the chest – but at first he couldn't point where he knew it from.

It smelled like Claire, he knew that much. A fragrance of flowers, honey and girly soap he was starting to associate with his Texan niece. It felt good on him, soft and well worn. Comforting.

Barefoot, he padded out of the bathroom. "Claire?" Peter called, feeling his voice hoarse and sleepy. "Shower's free!"

"S'okay! I'll be up in a minute!" her voice came from somewhere downstairs.

The bathroom was the last door on the main hallway of the house's second story, so Peter had to walk past by the rest of the rooms in his way to the stairs. Most of the doors were closed, the only one with some kind of identifying sign on it being one that had a skull and crossbones hanging at eye level, and a placard saying _'Lyle's. Forget the dog, beware of the owner.'_

He chuckled and continued walking, only stopping at the next door – the last one before the staircase - that was the only one half-open. Even though curiosity killed the cat, and he was by no mean nosy, something made Peter peek inside.

It was Claire's room. He knew because the same fragrance from that T-shirt also permeated the interior, subtly making feel at ease as soon as he crossed the lintel of the door.

It was nothing like the young Petrelli had expected his niece's room to be. Honestly speaking, he was not sure what he _had _imagined it might be. Maybe pop stars and hunk-of-the-month posters on pink walls, fluffy cushions and the kind of stuff he could associate with a still-growing teenager.

But in this room, the only feature that seemed to belong to such a young person was a varied collection of teddy bears neatly piled up on one of the corners. Not discarded, but..._amorously _kept side by side, the largest ones on the bottom and one on top of the other as they progressively grew smaller. Stacked by someone who cared.

The rest of it didn't belong to a child. The rest of the room was an adult's one.

A small desk on one side, with a home computer and a printer and neatly ordered writing and school material. A few shelves on the light-green wall, with books, CDs and a small stereo sound system. A CD tower and a queen-sized bed with a single bedside table. A wardrobe by the window and a large notice board on the wall opposite the bed, with tens of photographs nailed to it.

Peter walked into the room, not even realizing that his feet were moving. He examined Claire's belongings as he passed by, even though a tiny voice in his head told him that he maybe shouldn't. There were books on biology and genetics on the shelves – some of them advanced, college-level stuff – and classic novels and poetry compilations. No teen romances or Cosmo issues there, but there were some hardcover graphic novels and comic books that caused him to raise an eyebrow and release a chuckle.

Alan Moore's _Watchmen _and the X-Men's _Dark Phoenix Saga_ alongside Darwin's _The Origin of Species _and Shakespeare's _Sonnets and Poems. _If there was a word to define such an assortment, it was _'eclectic'_.

There was an empty space in one of the shelves, and the book it usually filled it was lying on the bedside table. _Activating Evolution_, by Chandra Suresh.

Peter picked it up and quickly looked through its pages. It was a well-read edition, with handwritten notes on the margins, paragraphs highlighted with magic markers and sections identified by color-coded Post-its.

He put it back on the table, wondering how many times Claire had read it, how many questions she had asked while looking at its pages and how and what kind of answers, if any, she had found in them.

And then there were the pictures.

The room was not really big, and at the height the notice board was hung, Peter couldn't comfortably look at them if he stood at the feet of the bed. So he sat down on its edge. He crossed his hands on his lap, examining the photos with a vacant expression.

Claire was in many, but not all of them.

Claire with her family. Claire with her father. Claire with Mr. Muggles.

Noah Bennet and his wife, sitting at a table during what looked like a Thanksgiving dinner. Her brother raising his hands to stop whoever was taking the picture from doing so. Another one of him with Claire, the two of them actually smiling at each other with affection. Her father asleep on a couch, horn-rimmed glasses perched on his forehead, a spy novel open on his chest.

Claire with friends. Claire with a beautiful blonde older woman, this one blowing a kiss to the camera as the young Texan looked at her and laughed. Claire with a handsome black man, squealing as he hugged her from behind and lifted her from the floor. The older blonde and the handsome man on their own, with a curly-haired young kid who was making a face as the two adults kissed. That same kid with a brown-haired girl of the same age, the two of them stilled for eternity as they sat side by side while they played on twin Nintendo handheld games. They were grinning at each other, like two best friends who had just shared a private joke. The girl piggyback-riding on Mohinder Suresh's back, both laughing.

More and more pictures, nailed to the board with colorful pins, some of them overlapping, not all of them straight.

The telepathic cop from Texas – Parkman? – making a funny face as he held a shiny FBI badge to the lens. Another one with both him and Claire, seriously saluting military-style, the effect of which was completely ruined by the fact that both of them were wearing silly English bobby hats.

There were loads of Hiro and Ando. Together, on their own, or with his blonde niece. One with the three of them costumed – for Halloween, maybe? – as anime characters. Naruto Hiro, Sakura Claire, Sasuke Ando. Claire wrapping her arms around Hiro's neck from behind, the young Japanese guy smiling sweetly at her as he looked over his shoulder. Ando in a flashy mobster-like suit, giving a sort-of seductive smile while he fixed his cufflinks.

Claire pointing at the Statue of Liberty. Claire at Central Park. Claire under the sun. Claire smiling. Claire laughing.

Only there were very few pictures in which the smile was real, in which it reached her eyes. And in none of the very few in which it did, was she alone.

There was a photograph in the center of the board. It was the only one that didn't have any other covering it. The only one that stood in its own, not nailed but glued by double-faced tape. It was the only one he had already seen before today.

Nathan and himself, smiling, tuxedos on but bow-ties loose around their necks, brotherly arms around each other's shoulders during the wedding of the eldest Petrelli sibling.

His expression never flinching, Peter reached out and took the picture from the board, taking great care in not damaging it as the tape came off.

Like he was in a daze, the evolved human crawled backwards onto the bed until he was lying with his head onto the pillow. Looking at the ceiling, holding the picture to his heart, Peter wondered what to think, how to feel.

He wasn't sure of anything anymore.

The scent of Claire surrounded him, and he fell asleep.

---O---

"Peter, where are-"

Claire found him a few minutes later, immobile on her bed. She didn't say anything, although her heart skipped a beat when she couldn't shake the impression that his uncle had slipped back into a coma.

The young Texan woman took a couple of fast steps to the edge of the bed, and only breathed in relief when she noticed the rhythmically way in which his chest rose and fell. She closed her eyes and passed a hand over her face. She was tired, more so than she had felt in ages.

"Oh, Peter..." she sighed, sitting down at his side, ever so gently so she wouldn't wake him up. Claire tenderly brushed the short bangs falling on his forehead, finding them still a bit damp. She grinned, with some bittersweetness. "I miss your cute emo hair, you know?"

She saw the picture he held to his chest, and her head turned to find the empty spot on the center of her board. The smile faltered on her lips as she returned her eyes to her sleeping uncle.

"And I miss him too," she said, leaning over and placing a soft kiss on her uncle's forehead.

Claire stood up and silently retrieved a blanket from the interior of her wardrobe. As quietly as she could, the petite blonde used it to cover the dark-haired young man.

Walking out of the room, she stopped at the doorway and turned around. She felt like she should say something, wish him good night or whatever. _'Sweet dreams, sweet prince,'_ went through her mind, but she felt silly and it felt inadequate.

She didn't know if he would be dreaming. She didn't know if his dreams would be sweet either.

Who was this man on her bed? Who was Peter Petrelli? No matter how good she dared to think she knew him through his diaries – and dear God, but that was a can of worms that she _didn't_ want to open now that Peter was finally out of his coma – Miss Bennet still had no idea what was making him tick right now. She may have learnt who he had been, but who was he turning into? That was a whole different matter.

Claire closed the door after switching off the light and went off to have her own shower.

She may not know who the stranger on her bed was, but she sure as hell wanted to find out.

---O---

_To be continued in part Eight: 'School Daze'_


	6. Chapter Five: Family Comes First

**Chapter Five: Family Comes First**

_Your faith like the pain__  
Draws me again  
She washes all my wounds for me  
The darkness in my veins  
I never could explain  
And I wonder, if you ever see  
Will you still believe?_

"_Falls on me," Fuel_

大阪市 - 日本

**Osaka, Ja****pan**

**May, 2009**

It was early at night in New York; Claire Bennet was dialing her father's cell phone number, Matt Parkman was humming a song for a serial killer's benefit and two men in black were parking their car in front of their targets' home.

On the other side of the world, however, the sun was just about to make its appearance over the Namba district, in the city of Osaka. The bright neon signs and billboards of Dotonbori Street – which had been made world-famous by inspiring hundreds of _cyberpunk _movie scenarios, ever since _Blade Runner_ – were still flashing, but there were barely any people walking along its pre-dawn paths.

The restaurants and shops were nearer to their opening hours than they were to their closing ones, and the only activity in the area came from the food and drink suppliers of said restaurants, as they delivered fresh fish, meat and alcoholic drinks from the local markets and fishing port.

The brand-new Nissan GT-R was an anomaly in that picture of serenity. Its turbo V6 VR38 engine howled with a roar that was akin to high-powered chainsaw, one so big that could only be wielded by a giant or a god, as it sped alongside the canal that gave name to the street.

The high-performance car reduced its speed only as it abandoned the road parallel to the canal, it then it made its way between the buildings and finally came to a halt right in front of the Kani Dokaru restaurant and its famous six-and-a-half-meters tall mechanical crab. The engine revved a couple of times and finally died down, when its driver switched it off.

The right side door opened and a young man emerged from the interior. After closing the door, he stood with the car behind him, looking up at the giant crab on the building's wall.

Hiro Nakamura shook his head in wonder at his own country's quirkiness and, pointing with the remote over his shoulder, locked the Nissan and engaged its alarm.

Carrying a small box of carved wood under his arm, Hiro ignored the restaurant and its incongruent announcement and walked around his car – well, it wasn't really _his, _it was a loaner from the Yamagato Industries car pool – and then he crossed the street towards an unmarked and apparently inane warehouse on the other side.

There would be nothing remarkable about that construction, a time-worn two-storey structure crammed in between a traditional sushi restaurant and a fashionable nightclub, if it wasn't for the fact that it was truly not remarkable at all. In such a tourist-oriented area as Dotonbori Street, that building was the only one that no visiting foreigner – or Japanese national, for that matter – would be interested in.

Which made it all the more stranger that there was a small fleet of luxury cars parked right in front of the warehouse's door. A flashy red Audi R8 was surrounded by two black and heavy-looking Mercedes-Benz sedans, with after-market chrome wheels.

Hiro arched his eyebrows at the cars as he stopped briefly by their side on his way to the building's entrance. Like in any other young male in the world, there was a bit of a car nut in him and to any third-party observer, he could easily be doing so in order to admire their elegant bodyworks.

Actually, what was really grabbing Hiro's attention were the tiny stickers on the tinted windows of the cars. They labeled them as being made of Lawman Class-III glass. _Bulletproof._

'_Interesting,'_ the Japanese time-shifter thought mildly, resuming his stride towards the door as he clutched the small box to his chest.

A building that drew no attention, cars that would draw all the attention in the world and a young man that craved for one and had learned to live with the other. There was such a dichotomy there, that somebody could easily write a haiku about it. His father probably would.

Whoever owned the Audi, Hiro pondered, was an attention-seeker. Maybe. Or maybe he just thought that the image such a vehicle projected was important. Just like he had done when choosing the GT-R from the selection of different cars he had been offered instead of a more conspicuous one.

That was also why Hiro was wearing a leather jacket and had taken his glasses off today. It was hard to give the impression of being a tough guy with his round and boyish face, and the people he was about to meet was of the kind that preyed on the weak and the helpless.

Images. Façades. Masks.

There was an old Japanese proverb that Hiro suddenly remembered as he was about to knock on the door. _'All men have three hearts: a false one in the mouth for all the world to see, a second in his breast for his special friends and family and his true one, which is known to him alone.' _

Hiro often wondered – especially after his short stint in 17th century feudal Japan – which his heart and his face truly were. Did he have a warrior's heart and wore an office drone's mask, or was it the other way around?

But those were the kind of introspective questions for which he had no time at that very moment. He knocked on the door.

The tiny camera mounted on the top right corner of the doorframe and its blinking red LED told Hiro he was being observed, but there was no immediate answer to his call. The young man waited for a couple of minutes, shifting on his sneakers-clad feet and humming under his breath.

Finally, there was noise from the other side – heavy feet coming down a wooden staircase – and the door opened inwards. Now, being of a bit on the short side, Hiro was accustomed to raising his head in order to look his interlocutors in the eye. He did the same this time, but when the door opened he found himself looking straight into a wall of white silk.

A wall of white silk, he realized as his eyes crept upwards and upwards, that was the chest of the hugest man he had ever come across in his whole life.

The man was no less than 6 feet 3 inches tall, and so wide he occupied the whole width of the doorway and then some. If he hadn't been a sumo wrestler earlier in his life, the man surely had earned his wages demolishing buildings with his bare hands.

"_Nani ga hoshii desu ka?_" the man inquired to know what Hiro wanted, with a voice that was like rocks rolling down a mountain.

"_Haroo. Watashi no namae wa Nakamura Hiro," _Hiro introduced himself, bowing courteously as he swallowed a big lump in his throat. "_Watashi wa koko ni imasu kawari ni chichi, Nakamura Kaito._"

The mountainous man considered the spiky-haired younger one for a few seconds, his lower jaw rotating as he obviously pondered if to let him come in, or squash him like a bug. Giving him a pleasant – if nervous – smile, Hiro presented the box of carved wood he carried in his hands. "I bring a present."

Arching an eyebrow, the man reached for the box, but Hiro quickly took a step backwards and kept it out of his reach. "My most sincere apologies, but this present is intended for Ryuichi Tatsumoto-sensei. And only for him."

With a grunt, the man nodded and – although obviously unhappy about it – turned around and retreated within the building. He warned Hiro over his shoulder, "Step where I step."

Hiro accepted the cryptic invitation and followed him inside. Behind the door, which the young man closed as he noticed the steel plank reinforcing it on the inner side, a narrow wooden staircase led upwards.

So narrow was the passage indeed, that the mountain of a man had to walk almost sideways not to get stuck. The stairs creaked and whimpered under his 13-size shoes while Hiro wondered what would happen if he dared to put one foot off the exact place where the man laid his.

He had the mental image of the staircase breaking under his weight and himself falling into a pit with sharpened sticks at the bottom.

Well, the part with the medieval-type death was probably just the product of his hyperactive imagination, but Hiro was pretty sure that somebody who didn't know the particularities of the building and wanted to come in uninvited – say, for example, a group of policemen charging in with arrest warrants – would have a more than hard time just to make it to the second storey.

Finally, they arrived at the second floor and the mountainous man started to walk faster, forcing Hiro to almost jog in order to keep up. They were welcomed by screaming men fighting each other.

The entirety of the second floor was a single open space with the ceiling of the building supported by columns. On one side, there were several cheap tables and chairs – garden furniture mostly – where five near-naked men were terribly busy counting large piles of money with the help of electronic banknote counters and ancient-looking abacus. They were being watched over by other two men, these ones in cheap shiny suits, that held not-so-shiny machine-guns in their hands.

Hiro and his guide passed near them on their way and the young man briefly darted his eyes to the scene. The five naked men – their backs and shoulders full of the colorful and intricate tattoos that marked them as _Yakuzas _– didn't deviate their attention from their task, but one of the armed men leaned his finger on the trigger of his weapon and motioned for him to move along.

Rolling his eyes, Hiro complied. His father's errands surely took him to the most interesting places.

Then, they arrived at last at the source of the screams and the fighting. In the farthest part of the building, a tatami mat had been set up; the huge doorman stopped at its edge and commanded Hiro to do the same with a grunt and a gesture of his hand.

On the tatami, four large men in full _kendo _armor fought a fifth individual. This one, unlike his sparring partners, was only wearing cotton pants, barefoot and naked from the waist up. His back, shoulders and arms down to his wrists, were covered in the same exquisitely detailed tattoos as the money-counting gangsters. _Kami _demons and fire-spitting dragons depicted scenes of pain and destruction all over his sweat-pearled skin.

He was in his early forties, with short hair black as a raven's wing and body that possessed zero fat and muscles so well defined that they seemed to have been sculpted on him.

Ryuichi Tatsumoto, _Oyabun _of the Nagakima Yakuza family. The head honcho, so to speak, and the man Hiro Nakamura had come to see.

There was very little Hiro actually knew about the man on a personal level. He was one of the youngest men ever appointed as Oyabun; or what in the West would have been called a street boss, or _capo. _Tatsumoto-san was a Yakuza styled more in the fashion of Western gangsters than the Japanese crime lords of the past: ruthless, extremely dangerous and with very little patience and a great deal of contempt for the old and traditional ways.

If you failed him, said the rumors, you wouldn't placate his anger by cutting off your own finger. More likely, you could expect your body to be found in any dark Osakan alley with a bullet in the back of your head.

Drugs, prostitution, illegal gambling, racketeering...there were very few dirty businesses he hadn't managed to put his fingers in. And to top it all off, Hiro could observe at that very moment, the guy was a top-notch sword fighter and martial artist.

Tatsumoto stood in the center of the tatami, surrounded by the four fully armored men. These were good fighters too, it was easily noticeable, and didn't attack him like in bad kung-fu movies – one by one – but in synchronized and well-patterned waves. Yet, the tattooed man seemed to be more dancing than fighting as he used his bamboo _shinai _sword to parry some of the offending blows, dodged others and waltzed his way between his foes. He delivered brutal kicks to the men's unprotected legs and slashed left and right with his weapon, striking them with blows to the head so powerful that would have been lethal had the men not been wearing their traditional protective gear.

The air was heavy with the smell of sweat, and the fighters' _kiai _war cries were deafeningly unnerving. Hugging the wooden box to his chest, Hiro let his eyes roam away from the tatami for a brief moment. There was something else that captured his attention. On the other side of the fighting mat, against the far wall, there was a heavy safe. It was as tall as himself, and its door seemed to be firmly locked.

That safe was his target.

"_Yameh_!!" Tatsumoto commanded his sparring partners to stop, raising a hand. There were several groans coming from the men, surely in relief, and they immediately fell to their knees. They left their bamboo swords in front of them as they took their helmets off.

Hiro gulped and licked his lips, as the Oyabun looked at him with questioning dark eyes. "Who is this?" the swordsman asked the mountainous man.

"A visitor for you, sensei," the doorman rumbled.

Hiro bowed respectfully and repeated the same words he had told his massive guide minutes before. "Greetings, honorable Tatsumoto-sama. My name is Hiro Nakamura. I come in representation of my father, Kaito Nakamura-sama."

Retrieving a towel from the floor, the Japanese gangster used it to soak the sweat away from his body as he walked towards Hiro. He seemed sincerely amused, and chuckled as he spoke. "This is an unusual place for the son of Yamagato's CEO to take a stroll. Or is it that you just got lost, little man?"

Standing tall, although still several inches shorter than Tatsumoto, Hiro looked straight into his eyes. "As I said, I come on my father's behalf. He has learnt that you have...come into possession of a certain property of his. My honorable father is very interested is regaining it."

Which was, more or less, like saying that Tatsumoto had stolen something from Kaito and he wanted it back, but more carefully worded.

The Yakuza crime boss laughed deeply. He clicked his fingers at the mountainous man and the vassal put his hand under his jacket. Hiro's eyes went wide, already imagining a gun pointed at his head. Instead the huge thug only produced a silver cigarette case and a lighter that he offered to his master.

Shaking his head, Tatsumoto got out an American cigarette from the case and lit up. He blew a cloud of smoke towards the young man, making him cough, and smiled like a viper. "I had heard that Kaito-sama was the kind of man that liked to do business himself. Maybe I misunderstood?" He turned to his men, grinning. "Maybe the old tiger's claws are no longer so sharp?"

It was one thing not wanting a dangerous gangster to get pissed at you, and a very different one to just let him insult your father like that. Hiro considered his words before answering and finally said, "My father is a very busy man, and his time is quite valuable. He does not waste it upon menial tasks."

Oh, but how funny it always was to run an errand for Kaito Nakamura. Visit interesting places, meet dangerous people and spit at them right in the face. Sometimes, Hiro missed the days when all that was expected of him was to put in 8 hours a day of inane programming in a featureless cubicle.

Tatsumoto's viperish grin didn't falter, but his gaze narrowed. He kept on smoking slowly, and holding the _shinai _on his left hand. "Does the cub have claws too, then?" He took a step towards the younger man, towering over him at less than an arm's length. "Or is that just the tough-guy talk that you have learnt in the States, young Hiro? And yes, I know where you live nowadays."

Dropping all pretense that he respected the man, Hiro presented the carved wooden box to the gangster. "This is for you. It's what my father wants to exchange for his property."

The two men held a brief contest stare until, nodding, Tatsumoto threw his half-consumed cigarette to the floor. He made a point of killing the ember with his bare foot, smiling all the while and holding the younger man's stare.

"Very well, then. Let's see what old Kaito is ready to pay to get his shit back." He roughly grabbed the box from Hiro's hands and walked away from him. "It's funny if you think about it, you know? I got paid to arrange for that piece of crap to get stolen from his office, and now I get paid to give it back...what the hell is this!?"

Tatsumoto had opened the box while walking away towards the safe on the other side of the tatami. He then turned around mid-way, a mask of anger falling over his face. He showed the open box to the younger man. It was empty. "Is this some kind of joke, Nakamura?"

Hiro's mouth was dry. Visit interesting places, meet dangerous people, spit in their faces and then break their balls. "It is no joke, Tatsumoto. What you stole from my father is rightfully his. He doesn't see any reason why he should pay anything to get it back."

The gangster's face was twisted in rage and for a second, the younger man was sure the _Oyabun _was about to bite his head off. Then, surprisingly, he burst out laughing. "You... you...you really crack me up, Hiro Nakamura! And your father's pretty funny too!"

"I have already told you, this is no joke."

"It isn't?" Tatsumoto's grin was a maniacal one now. "For your own good, it had _better_ _be, _young Hiro. Because you see, if it is _not, _that means you are in big trouble. Your father may not pay a single yen to get his property back, but…how much would he pay _for you?_"

That was a really good question for which, unfortunately, the young time-bender had no answer.

Once upon a time, Hiro would have been overwhelmed by the situation. He would have been on the verge of tears, certain that he would die and trying to find his way out of the building with a terrified smile and a babbling plea. He would have been wishing somebody would come to his rescue, somebody more intelligent and brave than himself. He would have thought of Ando, but deep down prayed for his father.

But that would have been the Hiro of long ago. The one before Charlie. Before Sylar and Kirby Plaza. The one before Kensei and Yaeko.

And he was no longer that boy. He was a man.

"You have only two options now, Ryuichi," Hiro said, a boyish grin on his round face as he consciously insulted the gangster by calling him by his given name. "One, you give me my father's property and I leave peacefully. Two..."

He let the sentence hanging, and Tatsumoto bit the hook. "Two?"

"You make me have to take it from you."

The Yakuza _capo_ glared at him for a couple of silent seconds. There was no longer a grin on his face, and his eyes seemed to be housing a storm. If there had been any true amusement at the younger man's antics before, it was now completely gone. Tatsumoto turned to the mountainous man. "Takeshi?"

"Yes, sensei?"

"Cut off one of his ears, and send it to his father," Tatsumoto ordered, coldly and without any passion in his voice, just as if he was ordering his subordinate to go and fetch him some noodles. He turned back to Hiro. "It's been a pleasure, young Hiro-san. Give my regards to your father, if you ever see him again."

As the head honcho gangster retreated, the young man arched his brow. "I guess that means it's going to be number two?"

Tatsumoto looked at him over his shoulder. "You can bet your ass it is."

Hiro rolled his eyes. _"Tai-pinch."_

And that was when things turned weird. At least for the Yakuza crowd.

Takeshi, the mountain of a man, was already reaching for the enemy with one hand that was large enough to grab Hiro's entire head in its grasp, when the young man unleashed his time-bending power.

The flow of time slowed its pace to a crawl for everyone in the room but Hiro himself. He could have gone the whole nine yards and halted it completely, but the true objective of this mission was not to retrieve Kaito's stolen goods. It was to teach Tatsumoto a lesson.

You mess with the man, and the man messes with you.

Suddenly, everything and everybody was moving at half speed. Takeshi's left arm was reaching for Hiro in slow motion, his grunt turned into a distorted, reverberating groan as his right one disappeared under his jacket. The young man spun and easily dodged it, delivering a hatchet-like blow to his exposed wrist with the edge of his own hand.

Now, there was a funny fact about fighting in a time-altered environment. Time, space and motion, like Einstein had theorized once, are all relative. To Hiro's point of view, everybody was moving ridiculously slowly, but to the Yakuza crowd it was the young man who was doing so twice as fast.

And the strength and energy delivered by a physical strike is a simple mathematical equation: the weight of the impacting object multiplied by its speed. The result: the thug's wrist bones splintered like they were made of dry and cracked wood.

Even before Takeshi could scream in agonized pain, Hiro hit him again. This time, a well-placed kick to the back of his right knee brought the large man down. His right hand was reappearing from beneath his jacket, carrying a massive Desert Eagle handgun. Everything was happening so fast from his point of view that he hadn't even realized he was having his ass royally kicked from here to tomorrow.

Hiro grabbed the large pistol's barrel and twisted it with all his strength. After a short struggle, the Takeshi's fingers gave up and the time-bender ripped the weapon out of his grasp with a new sound of crunched bones.

With a 360-degree spin, Hiro slammed the butt of the Desert Eagle on Takeshi's temple and he let time resume its normal flow. The mountainous Yakuza fell face-first to the floor, unconscious, and Hiro faced Tatsumoto and his gang of armored swordsmen. These were so surprised by all that had happened, that they hadn't even tried to stand up from their knelt-down positions.

Nobody, in fact, had moved a muscle.

Calmly, Hiro unloaded the pistol in his possession before tossing it aside. He looked at the open-mouthed crime boss with as much coolness as he could muster. This situation, he thought, required some witty remark from his part. But for the life of him, Hiro couldn't think of anything smart enough to say. How did Spider-man manage to retain his grace under fire?

"I like my ears where they are, thank you very much," he finally said. Hiro immediately regretted it, feeling it was the lamest line ever since _'what noise does a toad make when hit by a lightning?'_

"Get him!" Tatsumoto roared. The swordsmen grasped their _shinais _and stood up, shouting in anger as they ran towards the young man.

Behind him, the men with the machine guns also started moving closer, abandoning their watch over the astonished accountants.

'_Why is it nothing's ever easy?' _Hiro thought with an inner sigh.

He rushed forward as he once again bent time to his will. He leaned down mid-step to retrieve Tatsumoto's discarded towel from the floor and then let the armored foes surround him. They had been in such a rush to attack him that none of the Yakuza members had put their helmets back on, and their heads and faces were exposed.

Grinning, Hiro held the wet towel by one of its corners and spun it until he turned it into an improvised whip. He nimbly dodged the slow blows from the swordsmen left and right, and let his homemade weapon fly, slapping the men's faces with it.

Although he was causing more confusion and embarrassment than actual pain, after a few instants of this, the armored fighters lost all attack discipline and allowed the young time-shifter to start using their superior numbers to his own advantage.

When one man tried to hit him with a downwards strike, Hiro easily avoided the bamboo blade and whipped the towel around his head until he could grasp the other end of the fabric with his free hand. With the man captured like this, he pulled hard and sent him flying against a second attacker. The two of them crash-landed on the floor turned into a shapeless pile of moving limbs.

Hiro then faced the third man, whipping his towel again as he wrapped it around his enemy's _shinai. _With a new hard yank, he tore the sword from the man's grasp and sent it spinning in the air.

Forcing time to go even slower, the young man charged forward and then jumped. He kicked the man with both feet on his armored chest, his speed so fast to the other man's point of view that his chest plate cracked under the impact and his body was sent flying backwards.

The time-shifter fell on his back, speeded the time flow a little bit and let his previous foe's still spinning _shinai _land neatly on his hands. Parrying the final swordsman's strike in the nick of time, Hiro spun on the floor and hit his opponent in the back of his calves with so much strength that the man's legs were swept off the floor. The foe went down on his back as well, right alongside Hiro but in the opposite position, head to his feet.

Both men tried to stand up, but the younger one had time on his side – pun fully intended – and had no problems hitting the Yakuza member on the head with his borrowed sword and rendering him effectively unconscious.

Five down, three to go.

Hiro smoothly jumped to his feet and faced the gangsters with the machine-guns. He fearlessly charged against them as they aimed their guns at him. Just as they pulled the triggers, the young man reduced the time flow to a tenth of its normal speed. And then he went all Keanu Reeves on their asses.

Time was so slow from his perspective that when the bullets emerged from the men's Uzis, Hiro could see the conical shock-waves they created on their way. He then danced between the nearly-stilled projectiles, dodging them easily, until he stood between the two Yakuza bullies.

Turning around, the time-shifter dropped his bamboo sword – which seemed to float as it phased into the _'real' _time flow – and reached for the men's machine-guns. He took hold of the long ammo clips protruding from the Uzis' grips and slid them out of the weapons, unloading them.

Then, using the long metallic bullet boxes as if they were fighting sticks, he proceeded to give the two men a serious beating. He slashed left and right, striking the gangsters in their faces, arms and torsos, and moving so fast from their point of view that he was nothing more than a blur of movement and pain.

Hiro dropped the ammo clips as he allowed time to flow back at its normal speed around him. As the two gunmen fell to the ground bruised and moaning in pain, he hooked the _shinai_ – which still hadn't even touched the floor – with his foot and kicked it up to neatly grab it by its handle.

He confidently walked towards Tatsumoto, who was standing in the center of the tatami – actually, the only figure who was not lying on the fighting mat either unconscious or groaning in pain – with mouth agape.

"How...how?" the Yakuza _capo's_ lips opened and closed like the mouth of a fish out of water. "What are you? A demon?"

"I'm the best at my job," Hiro grinned, quoting none other than Wolverine himself. "But what I do, it's not nice."

"_What?"_

"Forget it," Hiro rolled his eyes. He raised his sword, challenging the gangster. "Tell me, Ryuichi: don't you wish now that you'd chosen option number one?"

With a roar of anger, Tatsumoto tightened his grasp on his own sword and attacked the younger man. He didn't make it even as far as becoming a serious threat, though.

This time, it was space that Hiro folded. He teleported right behind his enemy just as he was about to deliver his strike, and whacked Tatsumoto in the back of the head. He did it again as Tatsumoto turned around to face him. And once more after that.

Unfair advantage? Definitely. But like the old saying goes, in love and war everything's fair.

Again and again, the young evolved human blinked in and out of the space-time continuum, disappearing from the path of the Yakuza leader's bamboo blade and reappearing at an apparently random position in Tatsumoto's blind spot. Hiro mercilessly beat the tattooed gangster down until the man fell to his knees, exhausted and unable to even hold his sword.

Hiro materialized in front of him, his _shinai _leaned on his shoulder. There was an expression of merry smugness on the young man's face, but it was calculated, not real. His eyes showed no joy at what he had just done.

Tatsumoto gathered enough strength within himself to look up defiantly at the enemy. "You will burn in hell for this, demon."

"Don't I know it," Hiro grunted. With a _kiai _of his own, the young man delivered a powerful blow to the gangster's head and rendered him senseless.

As Tatsumoto slumped down on the floor, the young Nakamura-san turned his attention to the large safe on the other side of the tatami. He considered it for a few moments before turning to the only people still conscious in the building apart from himself.

Frowning at the accountants – who were cowering behind their money piles with flabbergasted expressions – he asked, "Who knows the combination to the safe?"

As one, the near-naked men pointed at Tatsumoto's sprawled body.

"Anyone else?"

The men shook their heads in denial.

Hiro's shoulders slumped down as he sighed, _"Tai-pinch!"_

---O---

**En route to Bayside, Queens, New York  
May, 2009**

Red and blue lights flashing and sirens wailing, the two NYPD police cruisers blasted through the traffic of the Queensboro Bridge. They were escorting a third car, an unmarked Crown Victoria with license plates identifying it as property of the U.S. Federal government. Like the defensive line of a varsity football team, they opened up and led the way for the other car through the ongoing rush hour traffic and towards Queens.

Special Agents Matt Parkman and Audrey Hanson shared the grim interior space of the dark blue Ford. Neither of them were eager to break the tense silence, but for the sake of their partnership – or whatever was that they had – Matt made an effort and asked out loud, "Penny for your thoughts?"

Audrey snorted. "Funny you should say that, considering you can have them for free."

Matt wasn't sure where the hostility was coming from, and quite frankly he didn't have much patience for it right now. "You know I would never do that. If you have something to say, Audrey, just say it. I thought we were past the silent treatment, considering our circumstances."

"Our circumstances are…" she sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Matt, our _circumstances_ are not important right now."

"Then what?"

"What?" the female agent was shocked. "Matt! We're rushing through the city, lights on and sirens blaring, because somebody put out a hit on an 18-year-old girl who can't be physically harmed and a vegetative young man that has the ability to become a walking thermonuclear bomb. I'm sorry if all… _this _sometimes overwhelms me."

"Well, what do you expect me to do? You have a brother with two boys in Michigan, if he called you saying there was a big problem with one of your nephews, and he needed your help, wouldn't you drop everything to do so?"

"That's not what I mean and you know it," the blonde woman gave him a cross look. "What worries me isn't your reaction to the problem, but the problem itself. What would have happened if Petrelli had exploded when he was attacked? What if he had been shot and, I don't know, _blown_ _up_?"

"He's not a literal nuclear bomb, Audrey," Parkman said condescendingly, which angered her.

"No, but like I said he can become one. And you guys have kept him in a nursing home all these years like he was some regular Joe, watched over just by his barely-adult niece."

"Yeah, because what you did with Ted worked out _so_ much better," he retorted with poison in his voice.

Audrey's face fell and Matt cursed under his breath, frustrated. That had been a low blow and he had regretted it immediately. "I'm sorry. I, ah…I'm really sorry. That was totally uncalled for."

"You can be a real asshole sometimes, you know that?" she said slowly, and sighed.

Yeah, he already knew. But knowing didn't make it any easier to correct such a flaw. Like knowing he was about two steps away from becoming an alcoholic didn't stop him from reaching for the bottle of Jack Daniels when the nightmares came at night.

"Audrey, think about it. What other option did we have?" Matt asked slowly. His partner just stared at him, figuring the question was mostly rhetorical.

They – meaning the whole merry band of misfits Parkman now called family – had discussed Peter Petrelli often and in depth. Never in front of Claire, of course, for they knew what her reaction and opinion would have been on just about anything regarding the young empath. "We couldn't just dump him inside a cargo container and drop him into the middle of the sea," Matt added.

"What about trying to get help from somebody with the resources and knowledge on how to deal with him?" the female agent asked, now somewhat placated.

"Like who, the Company? We're trying to stay away from those people as much as we can."

"Like _the government_, Matt," she rolled her eyes. "You know, the people you and I work for?"

Now it was time for him to chuckle without real mirth. "I might be an asshole, Audrey, but you're incredibly naïve."

"Am I?" the woman arched her brow, not really offended but not wanting to let him get off the hook that easily. "Why? Because I trust in our elected officials to do the right thing now and then?"

"Hell, yeah! If the government ever found out about our existence, they'd round everyone up and either make us work for their own interests in the name of national security, or lock us up where we would never be found again."

"You've been watching your _X-Files _DVD collection far too much, Matt."

The male Fed shook his head, smiling sadly. Parkman was tempted to tell his partner about that would-have-been future Hiro and Ando had experienced, where he was an amoral henchman serving the President about two and half years from now, but the former LAPD cop knew Audrey would never believe that tale. Some things Hiro had told him, even Matt himself had trouble believing. "Audrey, it's not that far-fetched if you think about it. Take Molly, for example."

"Molly?" Audrey frowned. The little girl was one of the very few members of Matt's surrogate family she was truly endeared to. And she was pretty sure that was the exact reason why her partner was using her as an argument point. The sneaky bastard. "What about her?"

"She's a sweet kid, isn't she? A little girl, an innocent despite everything she's gone through. And so brave too, not many kids would have recovered after something like that, what with her whole family being murdered and all…"

"I was there, and I know the kid's history," Audrey gave him a slit-eyed look. "Your point is?"

"That she can locate anyone, anywhere, just like that," Matt clicked his fingers. "That easy, you just give her a name, or a picture, and she can point out where that person is anywhere in the world to within a one-inch radius. How valuable would that be for the government? I mean, she would need _less than a minute_ to find Osama bin Laden. But what if she fell into the wrong hands? What if, oh I don't know, say the Mafia grabbed her after they learned of her ability from one of their moles in the government, and they forced her to reveal the location of everyone in the witness protection and relocation program?"

Audrey was a bit confused at her partner's tirade, "Are you trying to convince me of something?"

Matt shook his head. "All I'm saying is, maybe you're right; it might be a good idea to contact the government and put her and her abilities at their disposal. But what if you're wrong?"

Audrey said nothing, and just waited for him to go on. Although she was not sure she liked where he was going anyway.

"The thing is, you know, she _is _just a twelve-year-old kid. A little girl who doesn't really understand about things like the greater good or national security and all that shit. She just cares about getting good grades at school, having a list of Pokèmons better than Micah's and maybe one day meeting Justin Timberlake. But damn it, that's not really important, not in the grand scheme of things, so let's sacrifice it all in the name of the red, the white and blue, Mom's apple pie and the American way of life. Put her under a microscope and let her become part of the peace effort. Risk Molly going crazy so that the rest of America can stay safe and free."

Parkman was growing more and more passionate in his speech as he ranted on. His partner let him continue, but avoided looking straight at him. She noticed though that his hands had tightened on the steering wheel so much that his knuckles had turned white.

"And while we're on the subject, hey, why not toss Micah in as part of a package deal. Better to make him hack into our enemies' databases than to risk having him screw with ours whenever he feels like it. And Claire too, let's poke and probe her until we can add her regeneration power to all the grunts in the Marines. Why not put her in a cage and cut her open until the pharmaceutical industry can figure out how to make millions from the riches they're sure to develop from her DNA? That has to be good for the country, surely?"

"Alright, alright, I get it," Audrey stopped him as Matt gave her a furrowed look.

"No, Audrey, you _don't,_" he insisted. "Because we're people, damn it. Human beings, not virus samples. But if the secret gets out, you'll see those people in charge of running the country the same way I do; cold and grey machines that'll see us only as tools or threats. And in the name of the people the government will act accordingly, like it always does."

"Well, in that case, maybe you guys should start doing something about it," the blonde agent argued. "Before somebody else does."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, I've heard Suresh's technobabble just like you have. I know that there are more and more of you being found with every passing day," Audrey said intensely. "The nutty professor is _always_ ranting about that. If you ask me, it's only a matter of time until somebody does something really spectacular and stupid, and maybe it'll happen right in front of a news camera too. And when that takes place, the cat will be well and truly out of the bag and hiding won't have accomplished squat. Hell, I'm surprised there hasn't already been some kid showing off how he can shoot laser beams out his eyes on Jerry Springer."

"He's too busy with his dysfunctional, interracial and/or nazi families to be bothered with something like that," Parkman said, without a flicker of amusement on his face.

Audrey chuckled, but she didn't seem amused either. "All I'm saying is that eventually, you won't be able to stop it from happening. Not if all the stuff I've heard is true. But you might be able to control how it happens, Matt. First impressions are important, it depends on you if the general public's one about you guys is Molly Walker or some dude blowing up half of Manhattan."

Shrugging, Matt conceded there was a good deal of reason in her words. "Hiro would agree with you. He still argues that we should wear spandex and masks, and give ourselves silly codenames like something out of the Justice League or whatever."

Their eyes met for a brief instant, and the secret lovers established an unspoken truce between them. Matt clicked his tongue as he returned his attention to the road. "Don't even think about it."

But there was the image, clearly and intentionally projected by her mind: Matt Parkman, heroically posing in blue tights with a big 'P' on his chest.

Audrey laughed and this time, finally, there was true mirth in her voice.

Matt sighed in resignation. "So, are you into role-playing and stuff? I never guessed you'd be that kinky, babe."

---O---

**Osaka, Japan**

**May, 2009**

Hiro descended the fragile staircase of the Yakuza hideout with his father's property under his arm. He had needed many minutes of brainstorming, sitting cross-legged in front of the safe box and with time fully halted around him, until the proverbial light bulb switched on over his head.

Standing up, he had placed his hands on the door of the safe and, concentrating, teleported himself and the door – and just the door – half a meter away from his current position.

Satisfied at his own ingenuity, Hiro had dug into the contents of the safe box, discarding money, guns and drugs until he found what he had been looking for: a tiny jade sculpture of Buddha, about five inches tall, wrapped in a cotton cloth and stolen from his father.

That same figurine he carried now under his arms as he walked out of the building.

As he crossed the door on his way out, the young time-shifter retrieved his glasses from the interior pocket of his jacket and put them on. His whole demeanour changed in the next heartbeat after the spectacles were perched on his nose. His shoulders slumped slightly, his steps became shorter and he carried himself not with the ease of a well-trained fighter but with the slight hesitance of an office drone.

Superman was gone, and Clark Kent was answering the phone now.

Hiro couldn't help but to frown, though, when he noticed the large limo parked in the middle of the road and which was cutting off access to his car. Hiro thought he maybe should feel some surprise when the rear door of the elongated car opened and his father stepped out, but to be honest he didn't. Not really, anyway.

"Father," he greeted the well-suited man, with a small bow of respect. "I have retrieved your property."

"Well done, Hiro," Kaito Nakamura said, accepting the bundled figurine from his son's hands. "Once again, you endow the Nakamura name with pride and honor."

Nice and respectful words, but said with the man's usual detached coolness. Hiro would have liked them more if they had been accompanied with a hug or maybe a pat on the back. But Kaito-sensei didn't move to close the distance with his son and neither did the young man. Hiro's relationship with his father had been like that for as long as he could remember and not even the events of two years before, nor all that had happened afterwards, had done much to improve that situation.

At least, Kaito now claimed to be proud of him, didn't pressure him to follow his footsteps in the company and gave him the freedom to spend most of his time in America with his second family. If the price for all that was to get a call now and then from the man and a request to run some kind of strange errand like the one today, well, it was quite cheap in Hiro's opinion.

"I'm happy I was of service to you, Father," he nodded politely. "If you don't require anything else of me, I will return home."

If the elder Nakamura thought anything of his son calling New York _'home'_ so off-handedly, he said nothing about it. However, he raised a hand to stop Hiro from going anywhere. "Wait. If I've come here instead of waiting for you at my office, it is because I got a call from Ando-san. He is looking for you."

"Ando?" Hiro arched his eyebrows with alarm.

If his best friend had called his father for a non-work related reason, it only could mean there was some kind of problem going on. The young man got his own cell phone from his pocket and had a look at it. He had silenced and turned the vibration off not to get distracted during his mission, thinking that surely nothing bad could happen in the hour or so that it would take him to fulfill his endeavours.

Talk about Murphy's Law and all that.

Indeed, there were several missed calls from Ando's number and Hiro had to make an effort not to curse in front of his father.

He looked at the older man, "Do you know what is happening?"

"Apparently there is a situation with your American friends, and they need your help. Ando-san didn't inform me of the details, but it seems young Miss Bennet suffered from some kind of attack."

"Cheerleader Claire?" Hiro couldn't prevent his voice from raising a few octaves. It had been years since his young Texan friend had been involved in cheerleading, but she would always be that for him. "Is she alright? Is she hurt?"

"Considering her special nature, in order I would say most likely yes and probably not," Kaito answered calmly. "Ando said her father requested for you to meet with him and help him and Professor Suresh to make it back to New York as soon as possible."

A tiny voice inside Hiro's head warned him of how strange it was that his honorable father was wasting his valuable time acting as messenger between him and his friends. Like he had told Tatsumoto earlier, Kaito was not a man used to getting his hands dirty with menial tasks. And it worried him a bit, as Hiro knew that Kaito Nakamura always had a good reason for everything he did. He was not a man prone to irrational or emotional acting.

"Father..." Hiro said warily, not really knowing how to approach the subject. "Is there anything you want to tell me?"

Once again, if Kaito was puzzled he didn't let his face show it. "I'm afraid I don't understand you, my son."

The time-bender sighed, licking his lips more nervously than he wanted to admit. "If the Company has anything to do with this..."

"I severed all ties with that group long ago, Hiro," the elder man interrupted him. "I wouldn't know it if they were indeed responsible."

Hiro couldn't repress a bitter chuckle, "Father? One of these days, I will grow tired of being kept in the dark this way."

This time, the son's defiant words caused the father's eyes to narrow. "Go to your friends, Hiro. They need you now."

They held gazes for a few seconds and, as usual, it was Hiro who eventually broke apart. There was a strength about his father that always intimidated him. He wondered if one day he would get over it. If maybe one day he would be the intimidating one.

Given the memories of what he might have become, the Hiro that had gotten killed when he and Ando had gone five years into the future, the young man was actually scared that would be the case indeed.

"_Hai, Nakamura Kaito-sama_," he bowed again, effectively ending the conversation.

"_Nakamura Hiro!" _his father called the young man as he walked away to his car. Hiro stopped and looked at the CEO with downcast eyes. "You truly do make me proud of you."

Not really knowing what to say, Hiro only nodded again before getting behind the wheel of his Nissan.

Once inside the car, the young man retrieved his phone again and was about to call Ando when the blackberry started buzzing in his hand with the _One Piece_ theme as a ring tone. The LCD display announced he had just received a multimedia message from his dearest friend, and Hiro quickly opened it.

'_Hiro, this comes from Mohinder. Racine, Wisconsin. Hurry up. See you in NY.'_

There was a file attached to the message and the time-bender quickly downloaded it. It was a JPEG file, a picture of the exterior of a motel and an empty parking lot, probably taken with the professor's phone camera. Hiro looked at the picture until he had it completely memorized, and then returned his cell to his pocket.

Holding the steering wheel with both hands, the young man concentrated deeply, breathing in and out and clearing his mind from anything that was not the image of the motel and the empty parking lot.

His face cringed as he let his power pour through his pores. His knuckles turned white around the wheel of the Nissan. He folded time and space to his will.

One second, Hiro Nakamura was sitting inside the GT-R in the middle of Osaka, Japan. Then he disappeared without even the _plink! _of a exploding soap bubble.

The next, he materialized into existence – _car and all – _across the world, in the outskirts of Racine, Wisconsin. Outside the motel where Noah Bennet and Mohinder Suresh had been spending the night.

The two men were already waiting for him outside the building, their suitcases packed and ready. Rolling down the window of his car, Hiro offered them a wide smile.

"Gentlemen!" he greeted them cheerfully. "Somebody asked for a taxi?"

---O---

Kaito Nakamura observed his son's vanishing act before climbing into the rear of his limousine. The unseen driver in the front started the engine as soon as the door was closed and the elongated vehicle began to roll its way back to the airport. From there, they would get on a private flight to Tokyo and they would be at the Yamagato headquarters in an hour.

There was a third figure in the car, though. A young woman sat in the rear, across Kaito and facing backwards. She seemed upset, and the CEO allowed himself the rare pleasure of a smile as he looked at her.

"Something is bothering you, Kimiko?"

His daughter – Hiro's sister and future CEO of Yamagato Industries – shook her head in wonder. Unlike her brother, she was as tough on the outside as she was in the inside. A life in the usually male-only corridors of power of the Japanese industrial world had forced her to be like that.

Although that didn't mean she didn't have a passionate heart or housed a sincere love for her family. It was just that she was a practical player of the corporate game.

"I don't understand these games you play with Hiro, Father," she said bluntly, as Kaito opened the small fridge with which the limo was equipped. "You contracted that gangster Tatsumoto to steal that figurine from your office – anonymously, of course – and then you sent Hiro to retrieve it without telling him it was you who had it stolen in the first place. Sometimes I wonder if you obtain some kind of perverse pleasure from messing with his head."

Pouring himself a good dose of American bourbon, a guilty pleasure he had acquired from his old friend Arthur Petrelli, the CEO smiled at his daughter. He also retrieved a Cuban cigar from the humidifier on top of the fridge and rolled it between his fingers.

"I don't play games, Kimiko-chan," he said patiently. "Neither it is my intention to _mess_ with his head. The only pleasure I derive from these... _tests_, is the pride I feel every time your brother proves to me that he is the man we need for what is coming."

"What is coming..." Kimiko shook her head again. "Hiro's right. One of these days, your riddles and veiled truths won't be enough to satisfy him any longer. They do not satisfy me now."

Kaito gulped down a mouthful of bourbon before bringing the cigar to his lips. Holding the Buddha figurine in his hands, he flipped its head open and used the lighter inside its jade body to light up the rolled tobacco. He relaxed on his plush seat, his head enveloped by a cloud of blue-grey smoke, and tossed the figure aside carelessly.

"When that day comes, my beloved daughter," he whispered softly, "I will know that Hiro is finally ready to accept his destiny. And when that happens, we'll all probably wish that none of us had to deal with the burden of such knowledge."

Kaito turned his stare away from his daughter, and Kimiko understood he didn't wish to pursue the subject any further. She complied, as tradition and respect demanded of her, but was obviously not pleased about it.

The old man – and Kaito was indeed feeling older and older with each passing day – gazed through the tinted window at the world outside. It had already dawned and the streets were filling up, becoming a blur of chaotic activity.

A man like him didn't have the luxury of many moments of quiet and tranquility like this one. They were sparse, far and few in between. And, as was usual for him, they were haunted by the words of a dead man.

Another of his old friends was speaking to him, from the dark depths of his memory and his soul. Charles Deveaux's voice resounded in Kaito's head, clear as it had been so many years before, when he had addressed the rest of their group of twelve.

'_There's a storm coming our way, people. It's not here yet; it hasn't still caught up with us. But there are already dark clouds in the sky.'_

---O---

**Bayside, Queens, New York**

**May, 2009**

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Claire yelled at whoever was ringing the bell at the main door.

Wrapping herself tightly in her fluffy pink bathrobe, the blonde teenager ran down the stairs and across the hall. She took a second to compose herself – to little avail, considering she was barefoot and her hair was dripping wet and untamed from the shower she had just taken – and checked the main door's safety chain.

She curled his fingers around the grip of the compact Glock in her bathrobe pocket before opening the door slightly. "Who's there?"

"Papa and Mama Bear," Matt Parkman grinned through the narrow crack allowed by the safety chain. "Can Goldilocks come out to play?"

"Matt!" the young Texan brightened up at her surrogate uncle's arrival. She quickly opened the door and let the Federal agent and his partner come in. He lost no time and enveloped her into a hug so fierce that he lifted her from the floor a couple of inches.

"Oh my God! Thank you for coming, guys!" Claire gushed.

"Pleasure is all ours, sweetheart," he smiled, finally depositing her lithe frame on the floor. "Are you alright?"

"I've had better days," Claire made a face, not really knowing how to answer the question sincerely. "I'm better now that you're here, though."

She stepped aside, and held the door open for the two Feds to come into the house. As the female one passed by her side, she greeted her with a simple, "Hello, Audrey."

"Claire." The other blonde gave her a tight if friendly smile. There was no animosity between them or anything like that, but they just didn't have the close relationship the Texan girl shared with Parkman. Agent Hanson had always seemed to make a point of staying just outside the circle formed by their merry band of misfits.

Outside on the street, Claire noticed the two NYPD cruisers with their red and blue lights on. One of them parked right in front of the Bennets' lawn while the other started to circle the block, probably to do the same at the other side of the house.

"You brought along the cavalry or something?" the young woman inquired with arched eyebrows, as she closed the door.

"No sense in taking any risks until we know for sure what's going on," Matt said. "The cops will watch the house, at least for tonight. And don't worry about your mom and Lyle, either. I spoke with D.L. while we were on our way here. Niki and him are taking care of them and the kids."

"I thought though, they had a gig tonight?" the Texan frowned.

Matt shrugged. "Family comes first."

"And talking about family, where's Mr. Petrelli?" Audrey asked as Claire led them to the kitchen.

"Sleeping in my bed, he's pretty much exhausted," she sighed candidly. Because the younger blonde had her back turned to them, she didn't notice the mildly shocked stare exchanged by the two agents. "Do you guys want a coffee or something?"

"Coffee's alright," Matt said, still a bit puzzled.

It wasn't as much the image of Peter napping in his ten-years-younger niece's bed as it was the fact that Claire had felt the subconscious need to tell them it was _her _bed that he was using, that bothered him. Parkman finally shook his head, thinking he was probably just reading too much out of such a simple sentence. It was either professional suspicion or he was spending too much time in the minds of psychopaths and criminals for his own good.

"I know Matt likes it black and without sugar, what about you, Audrey?"

The female agent was about to answer that she was alright when she caught her partner's meaningful stare. He didn't need to project his thoughts in her head for her to understood he was asking her to play nice. "One sugar for me, please."

"Your father's trying to get Hiro to do a _'beam me up, Scotty'_," Matt told the young woman as Claire started brewing coffee and boiling water for tea. "If they can't find the little fella, he'll have a Yamagato jet to ferry Mohinder and him to JFK ASAP. He'll give us a ring anyway."

Claire nodded absent-mindedly, as she readied the mugs, spoons and all. Now that backup was here, and she didn't need to be on edge, all the exhaustion from this day was crashing down upon her like a ton of bricks. She wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep.

Although her bed was already in use, she suddenly realized.

Well, there was enough room in there for two, wasn't there?

The thought alone caused a rush of blood to creep up her cheeks and her hands almost to drop the mugs while she was placing them on the kitchen table. She chastised herself for her own silliness, remembering she was standing next to a telepath. She knew Matt would never violate the privacy of her mind apropos, but she also knew that sometimes he couldn't help catching somebody else's thoughts if they were projected very intensely.

"Let me help you with that," Audrey said kindly. "You must be feeling pretty tired right now."

"You have no idea," Claire smiled softly at her, wrapping herself tighter in her bathrobe. "Thank you."

"Claire, why don't get yourself in some warm clothes?" Matt suggested. If he had caught a glimpse of her inner turmoil, his pleasant face didn't show it. "We'll talk afterwards, okay?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea," the Texan nodded with a somewhat conscious smile. "You help yourselves, alright? _Mi casa es su casa._"

"Don't worry, we'll attack the fridge in a second," Matt grinned at her as she retreated back to the upper level of the house. When the former cheerleader was out of hearing range, the Fed turned to his partner. "Thanks for that, Audrey."

"For what?" she frowned, pouring steaming coffee for Matt and herself. She seemed genuinely confused.

"For not going all _Elliott Ness _on her straightaway," Parkman accepted the mug from her.

Audrey shrugged, brushing it off. "No sense in making her all antagonistic right from the get-go." She remembered the first time she had interrogated the young blonde all those years back in Texas. She could be a stubborn little piece. "But you understand this is really serious, don't you? Six dead people are not something you can just sweep under the carpet."

Apart from D.L. Hawkins, they had already had a very tense conversation with a police captain from the Long Island Department. The officer hadn't been very happy about the Federal intrusion in a local matter, right when they were on their way to speak with their main witness, and prime suspect.

They had had SAC Wayne's support on this merely as a personal favor from the man. Matt knew that support could vanish at any given moment if the heat got too high for the Bureau. It was, in short, a very narrow tightrope they were walking here.

"We need to speak with the CSU, see what they've got by now," he said, meaning the Crime Scene Unit, the NYPD's scientific unit – and not _CSI_, like the TV show incorrectly claimed. "Tomorrow morning we'll visit to the scene ourselves."

Audrey nodded in agreement. "Right now though, the most important thing is getting a statement from Claire and Petrelli. You know what they say about first versions: they're the ones that count."

Their conversation was suddenly interrupted when Mr. Muggles made a reappearance. The little dog walked into the kitchen, yapping and demanding attention. He went towards Audrey, but the female agent gave him a mean stare and the Pomeranian stopped dead in his tracks. Curling his tail between his rear quarters, the dog shivered for a few seconds before turning 180 degrees and running away.

Matt chuckled, sipping his coffee. "Well, there's another thing they say: animals and children can sense evil."

The blonde's mean stare turned to her partner, and Matt quickly stopped laughing.

---O---

**Racine, Wisconsin**

**May, 2009**

While Mohinder and Mr. Bennet loaded their stuff into the trunk of the GT-R, Hiro was busy stuffing himself with chocolate and candy bars from the motel's vending machine. He still felt a little lightheaded from his last space-time jump, but he was confident he could pull a new one and take them all to NY in a few minutes.

Although his time and space-bending powers had not evolved in the sense Matt Parkman's had – there was nothing new to his teleporting and time-bending abilities – his control over them had improved so much that he could now perform stunts like the ones that had allowed him to take down the Yakuza crowd earlier in the day. Teleporting long distances, or getting exactly to the point in time and space that he wanted instead of a random one was now fairly easy to him, as long as he had a clear mental picture of his destination.

The only problem was how much energy he used to jump. Stopping, slowing or speeding time up didn't require much – as long as it was for a short period – but the longer the distance in time and space that he teleported, the weaker he was rendered. Ditto, it depended on him being the only one jumping or if he was carrying others or, current case as example, a whole damn car along for the ride.

Adrenaline was a good fuel, he had found out, but it diminished his precision. Overloading himself with sugar and calories worked best.

And as a plus, Hiro now had an excuse for indulging himself in chocolate and junk food, something over which his Battojotsu and Aikido _senseis_ would have had a stroke if they ever found out.

He was munching a whole _Mars_ bar and washing it down with greedy gulps of Gatorade when Noah Bennet approached him. "We're ready when you are."

"_Phust ah pheconth," _the young Japanese nodded around a mouthful of chocolate.

"It's okay if you need a little more time," the older man said, although it was plainly obvious he was aching to get back to New York as soon as possible. Shifting to Japanese, he added with a small bow, _"I thank you for your help, Hiro-san. My whole family is in debt with you. Domo arigato."_

It always amazed Hiro how flawless the American man's Japanese accent was. His own English had improved exponentially thanks to the two years he had been living in New York, but his accent was still thick as hell and he was more comfortable in his mother tongue, switching to it by default when he spoke with Ando.

"There's no debt here, Noah-san. Your family is my family," he said and bowed ceremoniously. A small burp escaped his lips when he stood up and he blushed violently. "_Whoops! _I think I overkilled with the chocolates."

Bennet couldn't help a small smile. "Do we get going then?"

"Definitively."

Mohinder closed the trunk of the car and walked around it. When his taller partner opened the single passenger's door and slid the seat forward to let him in, the Indian professor frowned a little bit. "Are you sure about this, Hiro? Wouldn't it be safer to teleport just the three of us? We can always return later to collect your car and the luggage."

"No, I pretty much have this under control," the Japanese opened his own door and slid behind the steering wheel.

"What do you mean by '_pretty much_'?" Mohinder's worry only increased.

Hiro shrugged nonchalantly as the other two men got inside. "Well, I could always make a mistake. We might reappear miles away from our intended destination. Maybe on some rail tracks, right in the path of an oncoming freight train. Or something worse. This is not an exact science, you know."

The professor's eyes went wide like saucers. Silent and mechanically, he reached for his safety belt and locked it in place.

"Hiro..." Bennet admonished him with a fatherly shake of his head. "Don't mess with Mohinder's head, please. He doesn't do stress well."

"There's nothing wrong with my stress levels!" the aforementioned man said with a high-pitched tone. "And what in Vishnu's name does _'or worse' _mean?"

Hiro simply giggled and curled his fingers around the GT-R's wheel. "There we go! To the infinite, _and beyond!_"

"Beyond? I don't wanna go beyond anywhere!" Mohinder protested. But Hiro was already clenching his face and his pleas fell on deaf ears.

Half a heartbeat later, the space-time continuum folded upon itself and they vanished from the motel's parking lot.

---O---

**Bayside, Queens, New York**

**May, 2009**

Just as suddenly as they were lost into oblivion, the daring trio returned to corporeal existence halfway across the continent.

It was dark in New York, but the street lights provided good enough illumination for Noah to check they had indeed arrived at his house. In the rear seat, Mohinder was moaning something in Punjabi while running his own hands over himself to check all his limbs were correctly attached to the rest of his body. At the older man's side, Hiro had taken his glasses off and was wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. He was pale and seemed exhausted, proving Bennet's suspicion that he had overtaxed himself with so much dimensional-jumping.

There was something wrong with his view from the house, though. Noah suddenly realized he was looking at it _from behind._

Bennet rolled his window down and looked outside. After a couple of seconds, he sighed dismayedly, "Oh, sweet baby Jesus."

"What?" the Indian professor's alarm returned tenfold. "Is there something wrong?"

"Yes, actually there is," the older man grunted. "We're in my goddamn backyard. My wife's gonna kill me when she finds out how we've ruined her lawn."

"Oh, my goodness," Mohinder was turning several shades of green. "I'm going to vomit."

"Not in the car! It's brand new!" Hiro exclaimed, fighting a wave of nausea himself.

It was then that the night turned into day, as high-power light was focused on the car and its occupants. Angry male voices screamed at them from outside, "NYPD! Freeze! Let's see your hands! Don't move! Don't move!"

Instinctively shielding their eyes from the blinding beam with their hands, the three men in the car did as they were told. It was plain obvious by the sound of guns being cocked that they were being aimed at by things more dangerous than a police-issued car-lamp.

"Mohinder, whatever you do, don't start puking now," Noah warned the man behind him.

The Indian professor didn't say anything. He was too busy trying to stop himself from messing his pants. He _really _hated these kinds of situations.

The rear door of the Bennets' household opened violently, and Matt Parkman and Audrey Hanson emerged from it with their sidearms out and ready. The male Fed shouted, "FBI! Nobody move a...what the _fuck?!"_

The three men inside the car turned their heads towards him at once. Hiro gave him a small, self-conscious grin and waved a hand. "Sorry, Agent Matt, I kind of missed the mark."

Sighing, Matt lowered his handgun and holstered it back on his hip. He gave a sideways glance to his partner. "Any good ideas to explain this, uh, rationally?"

"I don't know. Aliens did it?" Audrey shrugged, still with her Glock up and aiming at the three newcomers. "Or maybe we could just shoot all of them and leave the explanations for the report."

"Don't tempt me..." he half-growled, walking towards the cops as he pondered what in the name of God he could tell them. He doubted it would sound believable...

Hell, the aliens story sounded better and better with every step he took.

---O---

_Peter is back at that endless beach, and once again he is a lost boy dressed in white. _

_He hasn't changed that much, if he thinks about it. He remembers now, but he still doesn't understand what is expected of him, what his destiny is or even if he has one at all. _

_This barren world without a name has changed during his short absence, though. _

_There's no more sun in the sky anymore to give him a sense of direction and hope. He wants to believe that is because the sun lives now within him. Because he remembers Claire, and her warmth is all he needs to keep on going._

_It is dark night, and a cold wind blows in from the infinite ocean. Waves crash angrily on the shoreline and the sand is flying everywhere, stinging his exposed face and getting under his clothes. _

_Peter raises a hand to protect his eyes as he walks towards the sea, thinking that the sandstorm will be less annoying over there. There are no moon or stars and by all means he should be blind as a bat; and yet he can see perfectly, in spite of the darkness and the grains of sand making his eyes water. _

_This doesn't surprise him. After all, this is a world of his own creation. Whatever this is – his mind, his soul or his heart; or maybe all together – it's a landscape of his own design, and he should know it like the back of his hand._

_It never dawns on him though, that he doesn't truly know himself. Never has, actually._

_He looks for his friend as he walks along the shoreline, letting the salt water crash around his ankles. It's ice-cold, but he has Claire in his heart._

_Peter is calm about that notion. He understands it and realizes just what it does imply, because it's in dreams that masks are stripped away and the truth is often revealed. He just wonders if he'll remember that when he wakes up. _

_He finally sees the reclining chair in the distance, and the form of Charles lying on it. His hat is tipped down over his face and the old fishing rod is still nailed into the sand at his side, with the line lost into the dark ocean. _

_A smile forms on his lips, and Peter hurries his stride. "Charles!" he calls his old friend. "Charles! Wake up, you crazy old man!"_

_He is happy, because his friend is still here to give him advice, maybe even to guide him. He hasn't even realized until now how much he has missed him. Hasn't even understood how scared he has been that he would never see him again. _

_When Peter reaches his side, Charles hasn't moved an inch. So the young man in white leans down to shake him by the shoulder. _

"_Charles, wake up! I have things to-"_

_But the old black man does not wake up. Instead, he tilts lifelessly to the side, his straw hat flipping off his head and falling down at Peter's feet...along with the sliced-off cap of his skull. _

_Eyes wide in horror, the young man can't stop staring at the gruesome image of Charles Deveaux's empty cranium. He feels his own feet backtracking from the scene of their own volition, his eyes moistening with silent tears and his head shaking in denial. But he can't stop looking. _

_He crashes against something in his retreat, a soft yet hard surface. Peter stumbles and falls to the wet sand on his hands and knees. Ocean water surrounds him, drenching his clothes and chilling him to the bone. _

_He doesn't feel his niece's warmth from inside anymore. _

_It's only as the young man raises his eyes, still on all fours, that he realizes that hard and soft surface he has collided with is actually another person. _

_A person that stands tall in front of him. _

_Peter's crying eyes go up, over long legs encased in white jeans and a lean but muscular torso covered in a white wife-beater that is streaked with red splatter across the chest. They go up, to the man's face. To the short dark hair, the bushy eyebrows and deep, malevolent eyes that are nothing but pools of night. To the strong jaw and its perpetual five o'clock shadow. To the blood tinting the smirking, deranged, smug, smart and cruel smile formed by his mouth. _

_Like a mouse cornered by a hungry cat, Peter Petrelli is paralyzed in front of Sylar..._

_His smile only falters when his tongue darts out to lick the traces of blood from his lips. Then it returns, and stays there as Sylar says, "Welcome back, little Pete. We missed you."_

_...and like the mouse, Peter can only do one thing as the fear subsides and his survival instincts kick in. _

_He scrambles to his feet and runs for his life. _

_Sylar doesn't give chase, though. He only laughs – maybe at the futility of Peter's actions, maybe at the madness of it all – and his laughter stabs through the night like it is made of sharp broken glass._

"_You can run all you want, but you can't hide!" the killer shouts at him, with true mirth in his voice. "I'm a part of you now, Peter! And I always will be!"_

_The young man runs and runs. He runs away from Sylar and his laughter, away from the sea and into the sand storm. He runs so fast that his tears streak down the corners of his eyes and slid over his temples. He runs so hard that his heart seems to explode and his lungs are ablaze with liquid fire. He runs until his legs turn into rubber and he falls down again, alone and lost in the middle of the blinding storm._

_He lies there, his body rocked by powerful sobs. He lies there and doesn't find the strength to pick himself up. _

_Minutes pass, or maybe they are hours or even days. He can't know. He has no more measurement of time than the thundering beating of his own broken heart. _

_Peter raises his head after an entire age of loneliness. He is kneeling on the sand, sitting on his own legs as the storm rages around him. _

_Through the tears, he sees the silhouette of a man walking towards him. He thinks it's Sylar at first, finally coming to release him from his pain. But he is wrong, he realizes as the man grows closer and his figure gains definition through the flying sand. _

_He is not as tall as the deranged power-stealer, and his clothes – although white as well – are different. And he, this new man populating his nightmare, is even more dangerous to him than Sylar could ever dare to be. _

_Nathan towers over him, not uttering a word. His body encased in a spotless suit – white as the driven snow – looms at an arm's length, so close he could wrap his hands around his neck and strangle him without even having to lean down that much. _

_Peter doesn't know why he thinks his older brother would want to do that to him. Or maybe, he knows all too well, but doesn't want to accept it. He wishes he could read the expression on his face, but he can't because half of Nathan's handsome features are gone, replaced by a hideous radiation burn. His left eye is yellow and sightless, his flesh is charred and raw and he can even see some blackened bone where his muscles have been consumed and ripped off._

_The young man shivers, his lower lip trembling. "I'm sorry," he whispers hoarsely. "I'm so sorry, Nathan..."_

_His brother finally moves to reach for him and Peter doesn't make any effort to avoid his grasp. His left hand, as burnt and ravaged as that side of his head, goes slowly for his face, growing larger and larger, obscuring his vision until everything becomes dark. _

---O---

Peter woke up with a violent shake of his body. There was a scream lodged at the back of his throat, but his lungs were so empty of air he couldn't release it. Instead, he whined like a dying animal while his whole body rattled in a feverish convulsion.

That was a bit strange in itself, a tiny part of his mind realized, because ever since he was a kid, he had awoken from his night terrors screaming at the top of his lungs.

Other children would have gone to their parents in search for protection and reassurance after a bad dream. Maybe they would have asked the parental units to sleep with them for the rest of the night. But other children were not sons to Arthur and Angela Petrelli.

Peter had screamed as a little kid because he unconsciously knew that would have called the attention of somebody. Nathan, if he was lucky, or a nanny if not. Someone that would have gone to his room and told him there were no monsters hidden under the bed or in the closet. That the morning would come soon and he would wake up alive. Nathan would have kissed his forehead – he was always tender and understanding in those moments. He would have tucked him in and told him he would keep an eye on him for the rest of the night, and beat up any monster that dared to try and hurt him.

All that had ceased once he'd hit puberty. Nathan had gone to Harvard first and then joined the Navy, and his parents had deemed it not seemly for the hired help – the _female_ hired help – to stay in the bedroom of a young man who was no longer a child. His father, especially, had told Peter he had to stop acting like a baby and start getting stronger, like his brother.

But Peter had never been able to stop screaming.

This night his voice had failed him though, and Peter felt like he was drowning in the unreleased scream.

The images of his nightmare – if a nightmare it had been – came rushing back into his head, with the intensity of a lightning bolt. In reverse motion, he relieved everything: Nathan, Sylar, Charles' corpse, the sandstorm...all in the space of a nanosecond.

But the memories didn't stop there. They kept coming in painful waves, like the ones crashing on the shoreline of his mentally-created desert. Flying into the sun, the conversations with Charles and his advice, the endless walk across the arid dunes...

Everything, he remembered everything.

It exploded inside his mind like the Big Bang, sending scalding knives of thought that burned Peter's synapses from the inside out. His head thundering with the mother of all migraines, the empath fell back onto the pillow as he brought his hands to his pulsating temples.

The voices were yelling the screams he couldn't release. They were tearing his mind apart.

Charles was saying, _"Is it impossible for you to believe there's a part of me that was left behind in you?"_

Sylar was laughing, _"I'm a part of you now, Peter! And I always will be!"_

Nathan didn't say much, but his yellowed eye stared at him accusingly, more burning than all the radiation generated by an exploding nuclear man.

And Peter Petrelli?

He was crying, sure that he was going to lose his sanity at any moment.

---O---

"Dad!!" Claire shouted while running from the house.

No matter how incongruent the situation was – with the brand new Nissan settled on the backyard's lawn dangerously close to her mother's flowers, the cops, the Feds, the greenish Indian man and the fast-talking Japanese guy – Claire ignored it all and made a beeline for her father, practically jumping in his arms as the tall man turned around and smothering him in a bear hug.

"Claire! Oh!" Noah Bennet couldn't help but chuckle as he found himself almost thrown to the ground by his daughter's onslaught. He hugged her back, and kissed the top of her golden head. "It's alright now, Claire bear. I'll take care of everything, I promise."

She wished she could believe him, but a tiny part of her knew his words were only wishful thinking. There were things that not even her strong father could fix. He could only patch them up and pray that the wheels of normal life would keep on turning for just a little bit longer.

But Claire found comfort in his embrace anyway, and in the reassurance of his presence. Without releasing him, she turned her head and let it lie on his chest as she greeted the rest of the newcomers. "Hey there, Mo. Thanks for coming."

Mohinder, who was making an effort to ignore his still unstable stomach, nodded at her. "Anytime, my dear."

"What's wrong with him?" she whispered at her dad. "He looks a bit rough around the edges."

"Travel sickness," Bennet shrugged. "He's a big sissy."

"You do know that I can hear you from here, right?" the professor half-growled at them, not really taking offense at their playful tone.

Claire giggled, finally letting her father go as she moved towards Hiro. "_Onii-chan!_"

"Cheerleader Claire!" the young Japanese male enveloped her in a warm embrace and they kissed each other on the cheek. "What kind of mess have you gotten yourself into this time?"

"Is that the kettle calling the pot black?" she arched an eyebrow at Hiro. Claire stroked with his biker-like jacket. "Hey, I like your new look. Very _knight in shining leather._"

Hiro blushed a little, and pushed his spectacles up the bridge of his nose to hide it. "Well, you know, I was coming to help a damsel in distress. I had to look the part, and you won't let me wear spandex."

The blonde shook her head. "Nope. Won't have my big brother looking like a reject from the _Yatta Boys._"

Hiro was rolling his eyes as Matt interrupted them. "Hey, just so you know, this is over. I managed to save the day, as usual."

Noah Bennet saw that the cops were going back to their respective cruisers – the two guarding the front of the house had quickly joined their colleagues after being called on their radios – shaking their heads and looking generally upset about the whole situation. "How did you do it?"

"The Force can have a strong influence on the weak-minded," Parkman said ominously.

"Matt," Audrey warned him, "geek alert."

"Okay, so I just turned the entire situation against them," Parkman sighed, giving his partner a sour stare. "Told them I was pissed because they never even noticed you driving into the backyard, and that I would have to make a really strong effort not to report them for incompetence."

"But they saw us appearing out of thin air," Mohinder frowned.

"Yeah, right. As if they'd ever admit _that_ to anyone?" Matt shook his head in denial. "Because something like that's impossible, y'know. It goes against all known laws of physics, and if any of them dares to claim otherwise, they may as well be kissing their badges goodbye the moment they say it."

Claire grinned at him, "You sneaky little bas-"

"Claire..." her father admonished her before she could finish the word. "Shall we go inside? There's a lot we need to discuss."

Everybody agreed and they quickly moved into the house via the back door. They were all already inside when one of them backtracked his steps to the backyard. His face a serious mask of determination, Hiro aimed at his car with the remote control and engaged the anti-theft system, making the turn signals flash and the alarm squeak at once.

Once he was satisfied, the young Japanese hero grinned and returned into the Bennet house, closing the door behind him.

---O---

Peter came out of his niece's bedroom feeling like something the cat had dragged in, and with both his mind and his heart submerged in a turmoil of conflicted thoughts and feelings that clashed head-on with the physical sensations of his body.

He was ashamed of having fallen asleep in Claire's bed, both because, well, it was _her _bed and because he was supposed to be taking care of her and not flying off to la-la land. He was also confused by this very feeling, not really knowing when and how he had decided to appoint himself as the young woman's protector.

Having slept for barely half an hour, Peter knew he could just lean against the wall and be snoring again in a matter of seconds. But at the same time, he was so scared of his dreams – if dreams they were – that he didn't dare to get the least bit comfortable. The mere idea of going back _there_ was enough to send an ice-cold shiver down his spine.

And to top it all off, Peter had just found out that he was so hungry he could eat an entire horse, saddle and all.

He was about to descend down the stairs and look for Claire, when he heard voices coming from the lower floor. He stopped dead in his tracks, his fingers on the banister and one foot already up and ready to walk down the first step.

The sounds were muffled and barely audible. Peter couldn't make out a word, so he did what everybody does in such a situation: he frowned and leaned his head to the side, listening intently. As if that had ever worked for anyone!

Well, just another surprise for the young Petrelli male: it _did _work for him. All too well, to be honest.

Peter was vaguely aware that he had a whole range of powers coded into his DNA courtesy of his nemesis, Sylar. Back when Claire and he were on the run, he had thought about it – not for long, to be honest, as he was more worried about preventing himself from exploding and keeping his niece safe at the time – and realized that he had probably absorbed the stolen abilities when he'd faced the maniac at Mohinder's apartment. But Peter had assumed that, as he had no idea just what those abilities might be, he wouldn't be able to consciously use them.

Like many other assumptions lately, this one seemed to be proving itself wrong.

Peter's nightmare-induced migraine hadn't improved very much and when his hearing became acute enough to perceive the drop of a pin on a carpeted floor from 100 yards away all of a sudden, Peter felt like somebody was hammering a railroad spike through his brain. And doing so with the blunt end first.

He couldn't repress a groan, and held his temples in pain as the voices from the first floor came to him like the screams from a flock of banshees.

Claire, her usually soft Southern twang turned into a murdering gunshot echoing through his ears, said, "Those are some cool wheels you got yourself there, _onii-chan. _When are you gonna let me take them for a spin?"

"When? Mmm, how about the 5th of _never?_" answered an accented voice that Peter recognized as Hiro Nakamura's. Although his English sounded so much better than the last time he had come across the young Japanese man, it still came to him at a criminally loud volume.

"WHAT!?" _'Oh, Claire, please have mercy on me, don't yell!' _"C'mon, Hiro, you know I'm a great driver!"

"For a demolition derby, maybe," a new male voice added to the conversation. Peter had no trouble identifying it as belonging to Mohinder Suresh's.

Claire replied, "Oh yeah, now that's great. I'm being criticized by a guy that could only hold his cab-driving job for a week and another guy who just got his license 6 months ago. For your information, I was in a high-speed car chase today, and I managed to do alright, _thankyouverymuch!_"

Hiro sounded amused, "And how is your car after that high-speed car chase?"

"..."

"I rest my case, your honor."

There were several laughs all around, and the sounds of people getting comfortable, coffee being poured and soda cans being popped open. Even the clanking noise of a teaspoon running circles inside a china mug was almost enough to send Peter's mind into meltdown. He could hear their breathing, their steps on the carpeted floor, the beating of their hearts inside their chests...

Dear God. It was killing him.

The copycat tried to gain control over this newly manifested power of his, because Peter was starting to feel seriously tempted to look for something sharp to stab himself in the ears with. Not that such a remedy would help very much, of course, as Claire's regeneration power would heal that up almost immediately.

Unless he somehow managed to kill himself...he would get some peace out of that, at least.

It chilled Peter right down to the marrow of his bones to realize how easily the idea of suicide had come to him, and how comforting it was.

Petrelli took a deep breath in, and tried to concentrate. Ignoring the roaring sounds in his head as best he could, he focused all his energy into the task. He accepted the power, let it flow though his veins without fighting it. As he had discovered once – while falling down a certain building with thoughts of a cheerleader in his head – he shouldn't reject his abilities, but embrace them. Make them solid, so to speak.

He pictured a radio in his head, willed himself to be that radio – if that made any sense – and focused on its volume dial. He turned it down little by little. The dial was numbered from 10 to zero, and Peter gently spun it anti-clockwise. 10, 9, 8, 7...

The sounds around him started to fade. He could no longer hear the house's structure settling down on its foundations. The water running down the pipes became distant and then disappeared. The heartbeats of the people downstairs receded into oblivion.

...6, 5, 4...

He could still hear their clothing slide on the fabric of the sofas and couches in the leaving room when they sat down. He could figure out who was wearing shoes and who had sneakers on by the noise they made on the carpet. Mohinder might be getting a cold because his nose was a bit clogged when he breathed in. Mr. Muggles was chowing on some dog food from his dish. Mercifully, it wasn't made of crackers.

Peter let his mind's dial settle at '2'.

Their voices were still clearly audible to him, but now at a tolerable level. It was now like he was sitting with them downstairs and he didn't have to make an effort to understand their words, even if they were being whispered.

His headache...well, he would need a truckload of aspirin to live it down. A few shots of Scotch wouldn't be bad, either, but at least suicide seemed now just the most extreme of options.

Peter unleashed a sigh of relief, letting his face sink into his hands. He briefly wondered why he didn't just stand up and join the rest downstairs. It would be the easiest thing to do, and eventually a necessary and unavoidable one as well.

Nevertheless, he remained sitting down at the top of the stairs, listening. Eavesdropping was not polite, but if he joined them he was scared he would feel like... like _what?_

'_Like an outsider,' _he suddenly realized. _'Like an intruder.'_

It had been bad enough all the years he had felt exactly like that with his own family. But the Petrelli manor had been such a cold environment to live in, that he had never felt he was losing something by not being in and of the inner circle formed by his parents and his older brother.

Of course, there had been a longing for things to change when he had seen the way in which other children were and acted around their parents, but more than wanting himself to be accepted in such a way, Peter had always wished for his own family to be different. To be like _them._

Like the family downstairs.

Because they _were_ a family. Five minutes into the conversation and he had no doubts that it was love what gave warmth to their words and took the sharpness off their jokes and teasing.

There was love in Hiro's witty remarks about Claire's driving. There was love in Matt Parkman's off-hand comment about giving both of them tickets for speeding and lousy parking. There was love in Mohinder's offer to chauffer them around, as long as they paid him an expensive cab fare. There was love in Noah Bennet's groaning voice when he wondered out loud why he hadn't stopped at adopting with Lyle.

And above all, there was so much love in Claire's laughter that Peter felt his heart bleed and cry in pain.

His niece – by blood and _nothing else_, he now realized more than ever – had a loving family.

And what did he have?

A long-buried father, a scheming megalomaniacal mother, a dead brother who still was angry at him for letting him die in the first place, and the soul of a killer living somewhere in the dark corners of his mind.

Peter honestly started to wonder if waking up from his coma had been such a smart idea after all.

---O---

"Enough with the tomfoolery, people," Noah Bennet said once everybody was comfortably sitting in the living room. He had let the conversation drift away because he had wanted his daughter to relax and feel at ease before asking her to tell them the detailed story of what had happened today. He knew it was not going to be easy for her. "Claire bear, please, tell us what happened, and don't skip on any of the details."

"Shouldn't we get Peter for this too?" Mohinder asked from his seat. "It would be interesting to learn his side of things as well."

"You don't question two witnesses at the same time, professor," Audrey spoke for the first time in minutes. She was the only one not sitting down, and the one farthest away from the rest. As usual, she preferred to stay on the periphery of the group, on the outside looking in. Her shoulder leaning on the room's doorway and her arms crossed over her chest, she added, "If you do that, they always interrupt and correct each other. In the end, all you get is what they think the other thinks they saw."

"And besides, he's resting now," Claire said adamantly. "He had a pretty rough awakening, and I don't want him to be disturbed."

Mohinder arched his eyebrows and shrugged. He knew that in all things related to Peter Petrelli, it was the blonde young woman who laid down the law. In his mind, though, he worried for her a little bit. With Peter out of his coma now, the young man would want to take over the reins of his own life, and the professor wasn't sure Claire understood that completely.

But that was a matter of thought for later, and he centered his attention on the young woman again.

Claire had already changed by the time her father and the rest made their untimely appearance. She was now wearing some white cotton slacks and a small striped T-shirt, with her petite feet encased in warm woolen socks. The Texan girl laid on the living room's couch, with her back leaned on Hiro's lap, who was sitting on one of the ends of the sofa. The young Japanese man embraced her midriff with a protective arm while he held an open can of isotonic drink in his other hand.

In spite of the intimacy of their position, there was nothing _couple-y_ about their demeanour or their states of mind. Claire called him '_onii-chan' _often – big brother in Japanese, a term of endearment she had learnt from the many anime movies they had watched together – and that was exactly how she felt about him.

Hiro, on his part, had found in the young Texan girl the little sister his own had never been. Claire was playful confidante and secret accomplice to his hijinks and his – for want of a better word – new career as a super-hero in training. Kimiko would have never been able to understand it – and him – the way this blonde girl did. He loved and knew that he was loved by his sister, but they simply looked at life through eyes that were just too different.

Hiro sometimes thought that there was too much of Kaito in his sister, and not enough in himself.

"So, where do you want me to start?" Claire asked with a sigh, finding comfort both in her friend's embrace and the warmth of the mug of tea she held over he belly.

"Start at the beginning," Matt told her with a smile. "Don't leave anything out, and remember we're right here with you. You don't have anything to be scared of."

The girl gave him one of her trademark small smiles. "The beginning, huh? Well...once upon a time, there was this pretty blonde girl, and she was the fairest one in all the land..."

---O---

Peter listened how Claire recalled their misadventures of the day for the benefit of her friends and family. He felt awful, for he wanted to join his niece downstairs and offer her his support during this hard moment, but he was unable to summon the minimal required strength to even stand up.

There was an invisible barrier at the end of those stairs and he was not sure he could cross it. Or maybe, Peter thought, he was just scared of what would happen if he dared to do so.

Life is all about change, and Petrelli had always considered that a good, and necessary thing. Without change, there comes stagnation and eventually death. Like a wise man once said, a society that never changes becomes pyramid builders at best, extinct at worst.

But Peter wasn't truly proud or happy about the changes he had been going through lately. He had seen the manifestation of his powers as a sign of wonder, but look at how all that had all turned out. Nathan was dead and his life was practically in ruins. And he...

Peter was starting to feel really worried about himself. Not for his own safety or sanity, but worried about what he could do or become.

If...if an echo of _him_– Peter refused to use Sylar's name – was indeed somehow, somewhere inside his mind and soul...if he wasn't completely dead and gone after Nathan had sacrificed himself that way...

Peter might be a danger to others. Might be a danger to _Claire. _

Maybe, the wisest thing to do would be to put distance between them. Disappear somewhere where he could be alone and not be any danger to anyone. Maybe...

Claire arrived at the part of her tale where he had woken up from his vegetative state. Her uncle heard her explaining how he had beaten the two thugs with his powers and...and then, she simply skipped over how he had pinned the second of them to the ceiling with his telekinesis and had been about to scalp him alive, Sylar style.

Peter arched his eyebrows, surprised. He doubted very much the young woman had forgotten about that particular moment, as she had been recalling everything else with precise detail so far. But why would she keep his actions hidden from her friends and family?

The only reason Peter could think about was that she had realized herself there was something disturbingly wrong with him, and she hadn't wanted anyone else to know. Claire _knew _and she was _protecting _him.

He hid his face between his hands again, at a loss for words and thoughts.

---O---

"...and that's when I called you, dad," Claire finished her story. She was exhausted, having needed the good part of an hour to tell it all – well, _almost _all. Hiro sensed this and squeezed her tightly with the arms he still have wrapped around her.

Planting a kiss on the crown of her golden head, the young Japanese male whispered, "Way to go, cheerleader Claire. Just like Wonder Woman." Claire giggled and affectionately squeezed his arm back.

Noah Bennet leaned back on his armchair, his shoulders slumping down as he brought a hand to cup his jaw. He pensively tapped his chin with one finger as he carefully considered what his daughter had said.

What she _hadn't _said worried him a little. The former Primatech employee knew his adopted offspring well enough to suspect by her mannerisms that she had kept something to herself, and he had the impression it was a something that had to do with Peter Petrelli. He let it pass for the time being though, as he also trusted in her judgement the same way.

"Claire, you did very well in a very difficult situation. I'm very proud of you," Noah finally said, leaning forward and reaching for her with one hand. The blonde girl smiled candidly – although the gesture didn't reach her eyes – and squeezed his hand. Bennet turned to Matt. "What do we know of these men?"

"Audrey spoke with the Long Island police," Parkman looked at his partner.

The female FBI agent produced a small notepad from the pocket of her jacket and flipped its pages until she arrived at her last entry. "There were two separate crime scenes, with three bodies in each. It seems our bad guys were with the Westies, Irish crime gang from Hell's Kitchen. I understand Nathan Petrelli gave them a hard time back when he was with the DA's office."

"Could be we're just looking at a simple revenge scenario here," Matt ventured. "It seems one of these guys, Tommy something..."

"Thomas Sean Gunn, a.k.a. Tommy-Gun, a.k.a. Tommy _Twofingers,_" Audrey provided, reading from her notes. "Apparently that was how many fingers he left unbroken when he visited somebody who owed him gambling money."

"Right," Matt nodded. "Nathan put his older brother in jail, and he died there. Maybe he wanted payback. One brother for another."

Mohinder started to say, "So he was after Pe-"

"Wait, wait, wait," Claire interrupted him before he could finish. She stood up from her laying position to face Audrey. "Did you say there were _six _bodies?"

She had only seen three men in the car, plus that Tommy guy, plus poor Samantha the nurse...Claire was good enough at maths to add up to five.

"Yeah," the older woman checked her notes again. "There were three men in the car which, by the way, exploded after you left. The three of them were so severely burnt that they'll have to be identified by their dental records. Good job there, guys."

'_Audrey, turn the sarcasm down a notch, will you?'_ Matt warned her telepathically.

Rolling her eyes, Hanson continued, "There were other three bodies in the house. The aforementioned Thomas Gunn and two civilians, one Samantha Liefeld and one Martha Ellis, both workers at the resting home, both dead by gunshot trauma."

"Martha?" Claire whined like a wounded animal. Tears were rushing to her eyes and her lower lip trembled as she spoke. "Martha's dead?"

"Uh, yeah. I'm, I'm sorry..." Audrey said, sincerely taken aback by the emotional teenager. "Did you know her?"

"She...she...she was my friend," the Texan sobbed still not believing it possible that kind Martha was dead. "She was married with two kids; she showed me photos of her family all the time. She...she was a nice person! She didn't deserve to die!"

"Hardly anyone does," Hanson said, while looking at her partner for help. She was not exactly the right kind of person to deal with victim support.

Matt immediately stood up but he was beaten to the mark by Bennet, who rushed to hold his daughter's shoulders. "Claire, it's okay. We'll sort this out, we'll fix it, I promise."

"Stop saying that!" Claire angrily shouted. She couldn't know it, but upstairs, Peter stood up. "I'm not a child anymore, damn it! You're always saying that you'll fix everything, but you can't, dad! It's like Jackie all over again and it will happen again, and again and again! There'll always be somebody after me, and people like Martha will _always_ pay the price!"

"You don't know that they were specifically after you," Mohinder said. "You heard what Audrey and Matt said, this might have nothing to do with the Company or your powers at all."

"Oh, c'mon, Mohinder, that's bullshit. And you should know it!" The blonde shrugged her way out of her father's embrace. "I was the first person in the line of fire when those assholes came into Peter's room, and you heard me say how they just ignored me right at that moment. They went for Samantha instead. If they wanted to kill Peter without any witnesses left alive and they didn't know anything about the way I can heal, why the hell didn't they just shoot me first? I'll tell you why, because they either knew it would amount to nothing, or because they wanted me instead. Alive and kicking. They wanted _me _and they killed Martha and Samantha to get me. And if Peter hadn't woken up, I would be their captive right now."

Stunned by her logic and outburst, nobody dared to argue her point. Claire let her gaze go from one to another, and found that only her father and Hiro were able to return it. The rest seemed to be too ashamed even to look at her in the eye, like it was somehow their responsibility. But it wasn't. It was _hers. _

"How many more?" she whispered with her voice broken by tears. "How many more people are going to die for me to stay alive?"

"Claire..." Noah tried to reach for her again but the young blonde dodged his grasp, turning around and running out of the room as fast as her legs allowed her.

Blinded by tears and not really knowing what she was doing and where she was going, Claire made it in the general direction of her room. She wanted to be alone; she wanted to cry herself into stupor and oblivion.

But Peter was already running to intercept her, taking two steps at a time on his way down the stairs. He let his niece crash into him right at the bottom of the staircase. He didn't yield nor stumble when she collided with him and instead, he just wrapped his arms around her and held her tightly to his chest.

Claire broke down in his embrace, her petite body rocked by powerful sobs as her uncle hugged her so strongly it was like he wanted to bury her deep within himself. "It's okay, it's okay," he soothingly whispered in her ear, one hand rubbing circles on her back, the other lost in her golden hair as he held her head to his chest. "I'm here, Claire, I'm here. I'm not going anywhere..."

Peter was not sure who he was talking to, if it was to his niece or to himself. Then her arms went around him as she hugged him back and all thoughts escaped his mind like a black ship sailing for the distant horizon. There was only this moment, the young woman in his arms and the overwhelming compulsion to protect her no matter what.

Peter let himself relax, sunk his face in her hair and breathed in the scent of all that was Claire Bennet. And suddenly Petrelli knew with perfect clarity that he would die before allowing her to be hurt again. Not because of destiny, not because of fate, not because of blood...he was willing to die _for her_.

_Just for her. _

Claire's family and friends followed her into the hall and saw the young man and woman embracing like the world was about to end. They saw them and shared meaningful stares, but nobody dared to say a word.

It was not until Claire calmed down and Peter raised his eyes – puffy and wet with unshed tears of his own – that Noah Bennet walked closer and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"Hello, Peter," the man with the horn-rimmed glasses said with a sad smile. "It's been a long time. Welcome home, son."

---O---

**Somewhere near Boulder, Colorado**

**May, 2009**

Dawn was still peaking over the Rocky Mountains, but _Doktor _Stronghein had been already up and working for two hours by then. The man's energy and drive were more than remarkable for somebody of such an advanced age, although anyone that even minimally knew the German scientist wouldn't bat an eye at the sight of his wiry frame bent over a microscope.

Pretty much, he'd spent his whole adult existence between the walls of a laboratory. He'd never been married and had never had any children. Science was all that he cared about, all that he loved – if somebody like him could house such an emotion. In a sense, science was his wife and their offspring lived inside too many test tubes and petri dishes to count. And what a productive marriage theirs was! His only regret – if any – was that his was such a secret field of work that he would probably never achieve the kind of world-wide adulation and respect he deserved.

"Anything interesting?" Stronghein heard somebody enquire behind him.

As he recognized the man's voice, the doctor didn't bother to raise his icy eyes from the microscope. Paul Windsor was his assistant at the Company's lab, a very competent man that the German found insufferably high-spirited at any time of the day.

"That depends on what your notion of _'interesting' _would be, my young _freünd_."

At 55, Windsor could hardly be considered young and the two men were hardly friends in any sense of the word, but the newcomer made a point of ignoring the veiled sarcasm. "Mr. Caine is here, he's asking about you. And, _uhhh…_"

Sighing, Stronghein finally stopped looking through the microscope and turned on his stool to face the other man. At the same time, he let his reading glasses fall from where they were perched at the top of his snowy white head and onto the bridge of his nose. "Maybe my grasp of American English is not as good as I thought. What does _'uhhh' _mean, Paul?"

"He has a man with him," Windsor said, carefully selecting his words as he held a clipboard against his chest, as if for protection. "Mr. Caine says that he's, ah, he's a candidate for the treatment, and as such he's scheduled a session in half an hour. Preparations are already under way."

"Oh!" Stronghein simply arched his brow. His soulless blue eyes moved away from his assistant – much to the relief of said assistant – and got lost in thought for a few moments.

The _doktor _was not a man prone to bursts of rage. Far from that, he seemed to live in a perpetual state of clinical detachment, as if everything and everyone around him was nothing but an endless experiment he had to impartially observe, analyze and document. But that didn't mean he was Mr. happy-go-along while his lab and his project got hijacked by men who only used calculators for adding their benefits up. Still, Stronghein had the serenity of mind to realize he needed said men as much as they needed him. Science – his kind of science, at least – didn't come cheap.

"Michelangelo painted for the Pope, after all," the German said to himself as he stood up from his stool.

"I beg your pardon?" Windsor frowned deeply.

The older man ignored his confusion and reached for the clipboard he was holding. "I gather this is the _curriculum vitae _of our new test subject?"

"Oh, yeah, and he's a real dish. On a scale of one to ten – ten being scum, and one being that stuff that forms between your toes if you don't shower often enough – he ranks about a minus seventeen. If you want my opinion, that is."

Stronghein hadn't asked for it, so he didn't bother to comment. Instead he read from the file out loud. "Mr. Ronald Lee Lipski, from New York. Thirty-one, Caucasian, _mmmm_, he seems to be in an excellent physical condition. Although his mental one looks like it's a completely different matter. _'The Central Park Stalker'_, really?" The German scientist chuckled without humor. "America's fascination with the dark side of its own dream is something that never ceases to amaze me. It's like you need to turn everything into a celebrity contest."

The _doktor _stood up and moved towards the door. "I gather Mr. Caine is overseeing the preparation of the test subject, _ja?_"

Windsor had known the other man for long enough time to realize the futility of even trying to meander around the truth. Plus there was the fact that he let his native German show up here and there, which was a clear sign of his annoyed state of mind. "Surgery Room 3."

"_Danke, _Paul. Will you put these samples back into the refrigerator? Then prepare for the next round of experiments scheduled today."

"Sure thing, Dr. Stronghein. Do you want me to look for you afterwards?" The assistant moved to comply with his boss' request as he spoke, gathering the petri dishes.

"_Nein, nein, _this won't last that long. I am fairly sure."

The good _doktor _left the laboratory and walked with decided steps in the direction of the surgery rooms, all the while rhythmically tapping his thigh with the clipboard. On his way through the dull corridors, he mostly ignored the greetings of those he came across, if anything just answering with a grunt the very few of his fellow researchers he actually felt some shred of respect for.

Foster Caine was, as Stronghein expected, waiting in the preparation area just outside the surgery room. Dressed in an impeccable grey suit, the shorter, bearded man barely darted a glance at his entrance before his attention went back to the scene taking place in the surgery room itself. There, a deeply sedated Ronald Lee Lipski was being strapped to a surgery table by a couple of green-robed nurses, while two men in equally green scrubs got the instruments for the upcoming operation ready.

"Morning, doc," Caine greeted the older man. "Thanks for finding the time to attend to this little matter."

"_Herr _Caine," Stronghein nodded slightly. "It's very kind of you invite me. Especially considering it is _my _research that we're talking about."

"Please, Heinrich, we're too old to start acting like _prima donnas_, aren't we?"

There was something about the businessman that unnerved Stronghein deeply, and he had always wondered what it was exactly. Not even Adolf Hitler had come close to making him feel so uneasy. Maybe, Heinrich sometimes pondered, it was because the long-dead _Führer _had been a bona fide lunatic, and Caine wasn't.

In any case, the German scientist knew which side of his bread was buttered, and he also knew when it was time to get upset and when it wasn't. He licked his lips, narrowed his cold blue eyes and stood at the shorter man's side, looking through the window into the surgery room.

"I have two questions," he said.

Caine nodded. "Shoot."

"I've been reading over Mr. Lipski's profile. He seems to be quite the celebrity; right now, the media has its eyes on him." The _doktor _watched as the assistants in the room finished their preparations and hooked up Lipski to an IV and several monitors and computers that would monitor his vitals. "Don't you think his choice as a test subject poses an unnecessary risk to our work?"

"The acquisitions department did a good job with him," Caine explained. "You don't need to worry about the media, Heinrich. It so happens that after he confessed to several rapes and murders last night, somebody in the New York Department of Corrections jailed him in a general population cell instead of placing him in isolation as requested by the DA's office, before he was transported to the penitentiary on Riker's Island. There was a fight during which Mr. Lipski was stabbed by an inmate. Regretfully, he died on his way to hospital."

"I presume there's been a body swap then, _ja?_"

"Absolutely. As we speak, Ronald Lee Lipski is being cremated." Caine motioned for the sedated man at the other side of the window with a disdainful movement of his head. "That man in there? He's nobody. He has no birth certificate, no driver's license, no social security number… there's not even a record anymore of the charter flight that brought him here from Newark. He does not exist."

"But why _him?_" Stronghein insisted. "It sounds like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a simple test subject."

The bearded man shrugged. As an explanation, he simply offered, "He's AB+."

"Oh," the German scientist arched his brow, mildly amused. He _already _knew it, of course, having read the man's profile. But he had wanted Caine to say it aloud.

Lipski was AB+, he had one of the rarest blood types in the world. It was the same one as his agonized dying son Benjamin.

"I guess that answers my second question as well," he smiled. "Why even bother with the test anyway, if you already know it's going to be a complete failure?"

"Are you sure of that?"

"Without a fresh sample?" Stronghein made a face like he was considering it, although both knew he was not really. "Yes, I would say so. The plane is going to crash and burn, the train is going to derail, or any other colorful analogy you Americans like to use. We _need _that girl, Foster. We need her blood, her spinal fluid, _her brain… _without her to extract a fresh DNA sample to be replicated, this is just a waste of time."

After a second of consideration, the _doktor _added, "Although…"

Caine sighed, his patience running short. "Although what?"

The older man shrugged. "You know, there _is_ another DNA source available."

"He's off-limits and you know it." Caine was tired of the same old argument regarding the man now known as Adam. "I'm not going to start a shooting war with Bob Bishop's department. The risks from messing with that balding idiot and his...prize captive are just too high."

"Too high even for your son's life?"

It was like he had slapped the businessman in the face with a leather glove. Caine blanched for a couple of seconds and he almost lost his temper, but he recovered admirably and gave the older man a cool glare. "This is not just about my son, Heinrich. Remember what we're trying to accomplish here."

"Oh, but I do remember, _mein freünd,_" the German scientist grinned, lizard-like. "I just wonder sometimes if _you _do."

"We're all set and ready," a voice coming through the room's speakers drove both men's attention from their conversation to the scene taking place in the surgery room.

Caine and Stronghein turned their faces to the window. On the other side of the glass, the nurses and the assistants had just gone out of the room and had been substituted by four men in airtight biohazard suits. Two of them were armed with compact H&K G36K assault rifles while the third pushed a wheeled tray that carried a state-of-the-art electronic bypass machine.

The fourth man – wearing the same hermetic garb with a Plexiglas faceplate and an autonomous oxygen tank – was also pushing the same type of gurney as his colleague. His, though, was being used to transport four large cylindrical containers. Half of them were full of a syrupy reddish substance, while the rest held a nearly transparent fluid.

While the two armed men held their positions on both sides of the door and the other two started getting their equipment ready, Caine and Stronghein sat down to observe the procedure.

The German scientist explained what the men in the biohazard suits were doing, mostly because he was already bored and he knew how Caine had heard it all before. "The first step is to connect the subject to the bypass machine. We extract his blood and mix it with an irradiated serum in a high-speed centrifugation system. This way, the blood will return to his body and spread the serum all throughout his vascular system. The serum will bond at a sub-cellular level, corrupting and weakening his DNA. It is like a battering ram; it opens the way for the second phase."

"That red stuff," Caine nodded.

Stronghein had to make an effort not to roll his eyes. "_Ja._ The red _'stuff' _as you call it so accurately, is our custom-built virus. Effectively, it will rewrite the subject's genome, substituting a large part of what is commonly called '_junk DNA'_ – non-active genes – with a new replicated gene sequence. One that is fully active."

"The problem is," Stronghein continued, "that we are playing this by ear, I believe you call it. We know which part of the junk DNA must be substituted, but we're not 100 sure if the new gene sequence is correctly coded, because we don't have an active sample we can copy it from."

The businessman frowned. "What do you think will happen if it is not?"

The German scientist opened his hands, making a '_who knows?'_ gesture. "The results have been too unpredictable so far to hazard a guess. Most likely, the subject will experience a lethal mutation that will kill him within minutes. A couple of times we've obtained…other results."

"You had success once," Caine affirmed, without looking at him.

"That was a long time ago," Stronghein frowned, suddenly uncomfortable. "It was a different project, with different objectives and a different procedure. And as you know, I wouldn't say it was completely successful either. Not as we expected it to be, at least."

Actually, in the German _doktor's _opinion, the Janus Project had been successful beyond his wildest dreams, just not in the way his employers had desired it to be. And being so short-sighted as such people were, they hadn't been able to see beyond their preconceptions and accept that fact.

But all that was now in the past. The present was Ronald Lee Lipski's anesthetized body strapped to the table and his veins being pumped full of the miraculous solution that would either turn him into a demi-god or kill him in the most horrible of ways. Stronghein personally didn't doubt which outcome it would be, but he humored his employer nonetheless.

He knew that what Caine wanted was a worst-case scenario, and surely that was what Lipski was going to give him.

They needed a full hour to pump the sedated serial killer full with the contents from the cans, following the process described by the German scientist. When that part was finished and the needles were withdrawn out of Lipski's body, Stronghein produced an old-fashioned stopwatch from the pocket of his lab coat and signaled the men inside the surgery room.

"Surgery room number 3 sealed," announced the disembodied voice of the operation's controller through the speakers. "Ventilation system engaged. Commencing verification of the patient´s development."

Stronghein clicked his stopwatch as one of the doctors in the biohazard suits gathered a scalpel from the equipment tray and leaned its sharp point on Lipski's breastbone. With a steady and decided hand, the doctor sliced down the serial killer's chest, opening a long gash down to the man's bellybutton that started to bleed profusely as soon as the flesh was bitten by the sharp blade.

Caine and Stronghein watched calmly. They had a general view of things through the glass window and a detailed one thanks to the computer monitors spread around the room they were sitting in.

Nothing seemed to happen at first. Then, when the _doktor's _stopwatch reached the 30-second mark, the wound on Lipski's chest started to knit itself together.

"It's working. He's healing," Caine said breathless, his eyes wide in hope. His companion only gave him a cool stare and said nothing.

"Subject's vital signs are stable," said the impersonal voice of the controller.

One of the doctors in the surgery room wiped the blood off the patient's chest with a sponge, so they could have a clearer view of the self-healing wound. The flesh had closed, but there still was a visible reddish line where the gash had been mere instants before, like a recent scar.

Stronghein checked his chronometer. Forty-five seconds.

Lipski's eyes flew open. His pupils were so dilated that there was almost no sign of his blue irises. His whole body started to shake on the table, and he was only prevented from falling by the straps binding him. The scar on his chest turned an angry scarlet.

"Subject entering convulsive state. Heart and breathing rate accelerating. Vital signs becoming unstable."

Fifty seconds. Ron Lipski started to scream louder than any of his victims had ever done.

The scar on his chest reopened and large quantities of organic material oozed out of the gash, solidifying as they came in contact with air. It was like he was growing a tumor out of his body.

"What's going on?" Caine asked his companion with a deep frown.

Without raising his gaze from the face of his stopwatch, Stronghein answered, "His body doesn't understand it has already healed the damage, so it continues on with the process. And on, and on. He regenerates more and more tissue, even when it is not needed."

One minute. Lipski's body arched on the surgery table until the straps binding him reached their tensile limit. There were large globs of reddish-purple tissue sprouting all over his skin. Lipski's scream died into a gurgle as his tongue swell like a balloon within his mouth. His eyes bulged out, about to burst.

"Oh, for God's sake," Caine said with disgust. This wasn't what he had to hoped to see. He moved to the intercom and pressed the speak button, "Put him out of his misery, will you?"

One of the armed men in the airtight suits immediately moved to Lipski's deformed body. He shouldered his automatic rifle, cocked it and leveled its barrel at the agonizing serial killer's head.

"Too late for that!" Stronghein almost laughed with a sing-song voice, just as the man opened fire on the other side of the window.

Lipski's head blew apart like water balloon, splattering all around him with blood and gore. That didn't stop the convulsions of his body, though.

"Subject's vital signs are off the scale. Cellular activity is also off the scale," the impersonal controller's voice announced. "Warning: mutation in progress."

"What the fuck-?" the businessman's eyes went wide like saucers.

Lipski's bonds snapped free as his body experienced a brutal and uncontrolled growth of tissue. His flesh erupted with large bulbous external tumors that burst open with oozing pus and blood, only to solidify into new appendages that shook and flapped like tentacles. His limbs grew longer and thicker, hands and feet losing definition.

At one minute and thirty seconds, there was little that resembled a human being on the surgery table.

Free of his straps, the growing mass of deformed flesh lashed out with its newly formed limbs – which now resembled the tentacles of a creature out of a H.P. Lovecraft nightmare. He/it hit the man with the machine gun across his torso and sent him flying across the room, until his body crashed against the far wall.

"What the hell is going on here?" Caine turned to the German scientist, with a panicked expression on his bearded face.

"Evolution, _mein freünd_. That is what is happening." There was a gleam in his cold blue eyes. Genius and madness wrapped up into one. "Survival of the fittest, Foster. Fascinating, _ja_?"

One of the doctors in the surgery room made a dash for the door, only to found it tightly locked. The creature sent a long snake-like appendage flying towards him, which nimbly wrapped itself around the man's neck. The doctor was lifted off his feet, his throat crushed under muscles too big and strong to be fought against. His vertebrae snapped as if they were matchsticks as his biohazard suit-encased body was shook around like a rag doll.

One minute, fifty seconds.

The other doctor screamed. The other armed man opened up automatic fire. It was like shooting a body made of water.

"The simplest lifeform is usually the most adaptable one," Stronghein explained calmly, now watching the scene through the window with great interest. "No internal organs, no conscious mind, no will but the one to survive…"

The creature used the corpse of the first doctor as a battering ram and crashed it powerfully against the window, as its body kept one growing to the point it was now spreading down the surgery table. The reinforced glass withheld the first assault, but neither Caine nor Stronghein had many doubts that would be the case for much longer.

A second tentacle-like appendage speared towards the man with the machine gun, impaling him through his chest with an explosion of blood and flying bone splinters. He was dead in less than an instant.

"Do something!" Caine demanded. "End this now!"

Sighing, the German scientist pushed with his feet against the floor and let his chair roll towards the intercom. With perfect calm, he spoke into the microphone, "Burn it."

There was a hissing noise and, all of a sudden, the room at the other side of the window became a raging inferno. Somebody screamed, probably the only living human left in the surgery room, as the concealed sprinklers in the ceiling started spraying the whole interior of the stance with liquid fire.

"Next generation thermite plasma," Stronghein explained as he absent-mindedly clicked his stopwatch to a halt. "It's like napalm at 2000˚ Celsius, the only thing hot enough to burn everything in there down to a sub-cellular level. Ah, I wouldn't stay close to the glass, if I were you."

Caine took a step back, horrified. The man's screams died soon, but something kept on moving inside the thick rain of fire. A tentacle hit the glass repeatedly, but more and more weakly each time. There was a screeching noise coming from the creature that had once been Ronald Lee Lipski. It was like…like…

No, Foster Caine couldn't find the words to define that inhuman sound. But he knew it would plague his nightmares for the rest of his life.

The inferno lasted only for thirty seconds, but to the bearded businessman it was almost a lifetime. Stronghein spoke again to the intercom, "That's enough, Rolf. _Danke._"

The ventilation system in the surgery room kicked in immediately after the thermite plasma was cut off, clearing the interior of the room of smoke and gasses. There was not much to see afterwards. The corpses of the four men in the biohazard suits were charred beyond recognition, barely human shaped at all.

Of the thing that had been Ronald Lee Lipski…there was not much left. And what there _was_…well, it would have to be scraped off the floor and the walls with a spatula.

Sighing, Stronghein stood up from his chair and walked close to his employer. The man in the business suit turned to him, his face a mask of horror. The German scientist looked down at him for a few seconds before simply slapping him in the chest with Lipski's clipboard file. "Next time you want a presentation, speak to me first, _ja?_ It will save a lot of time and resources."

Stronghein simply left Caine there, looking through the window in aghast as he held the clipboard to his chest.

The _doktor _returned to his laboratory, checked that Windsor – his assistant – had put everything back into the fridge as ordered and picked up the phone. "Sally?" he called his secretary. "I'm going to be in the lab for a few hours. Would you be so kind to bring me some sandwiches and a cup of tea? Yes? You are adorable, _liebchen. _Oh, and if Mr. Caine calls…tell him I'm busy."

Humming an old German song from his childhood, Stronghein hung up the phone and moved back to the fridge where he kept his samples. He snapped a couple of latex gloves on, opened it and retrieved a sealed transparent container from its interior.

He observed what was inside the hermetically sealed box through its plastic lid. It was a tiny pinky toe, so small that it had to belong either to a child or a petite woman. It was probably the second, judging by the remains of pink polish still coloring the nail. It was so cleanly cut, that whoever had mutilated it off the rest of the body it had belonged to had probably used some large scissors in order to do the job.

Still humming, Stronghein placed the container on the table and resumed his work.

---O---

_To be continued…_


End file.
